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On Saturday night, at the Subiaco Hotel in the inner suburbs of Perth, a 17-year-old had a dinner with a group of adults. He ordered a steak. Medium, as is his preference.
But this was no ordinary meal, no ordinary teenager. The behaviour of the old pub’s other patrons – some offering glances, some even coming up to the party – gave that much away.
“It’s a bit hard,” Di Sheppard, one of the adults and the coach of Gout Gout, admitted. “I’ve got a couple of guys that I’ve known for a long time. They’re here as, well, crowd control. We can’t go anywhere.”
And so, between interruptions, Gout ate. It was an important meal, given what lay ahead of him the following day. There was a chance to claim his first open-age national championship, at 17, and to win his first race against adults.
He would do both. “The cork’s out of the genie bottle now,” Sheppard said on Sunday, after another historic day in Australian sport. One written by the flowing cursive of Gout’s stride.
With the cork free, the only thing keeping the genie inside appears to be the wind. Gout has now run a sub-20-second race in the 200m twice, and gone under 10sec in the 100m two more times. Yet all these milestone performances have been barred from the record books due to excessive tailwinds.
While the gods have given the Brisbane teenager extraordinary gifts and an aptitude for work, they have delivered them with a catch. A torrid tempest swirls as soon as Gout crouches at his blocks. Sheppard and Gout see the funny side about the ridiculous run of gusts that has made meteorologists out of sports reporters. “He brings his own wind event with him, he’s that fast he creates his own wind,” Sheppard said.
The wind cannot blow away the truth. Gout is not only Australia’s greatest sprinter already at age 17, he is one of the best young talents the world has ever seen. Just 50 men have run faster than his performance on Sunday in the history of the 200m. The Ipswich Grammar student now shares the fastest time run by someone under 18 with Erriyon Knighton (although the American’s time was set with a legal wind reading).
Among under-20s, Gout’s time in Perth took him above greats Justin Gatlin and Usain Bolt on the all-time list. Look back at Bolt’s record-setting run in 2004, and it’s clear why the Jamaican has described the Australian as a “young me”. Now, realise Gout – albeit with slightly more of a tailwind – ran almost a tenth of a second faster than the eight-time Olympic gold medallist at the same age.
Australia’s performance in track and field at the Paris Olympics was its best since Melbourne in 1956. Then at the world under-20 championships in August, the team secured a record medal haul. There is an increase in the level of investment and excitement in the run-up to the Brisbane 2032 Games.
But atop these solid foundations is the emergence of Gout. After a 10,000-sellout Maurie Plant Meet in Melbourne two weeks ago, around 5,000 watched the final day of the national championships on Sunday. (Athletics Australia’s president, Jane Flemming, snapped a photo of the “grandstand full” sign on her iPhone to send to her fellow directors.)
These are not big crowds by AFL or NRL standards, but Athletics Australia officials are privately giddy about the progress made in months. Paris was promising, and those within the sport had planned a slow but steady trajectory towards LA in 2028, then Brisbane four years later. Now they believe they are three years ahead of where they thought they would be.
It is not just Gout. Beyond this generation’s medal winners like Nina Kennedy, Jess Hull and Matt Denny, there are teenagers like Leah O’Brien and Cameron Myers who were not even in France nine months ago.
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All of a sudden, there is optimism that Athletics Australia’s four one-day classics – in Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney – as well as the national championships and state-run events like Zatopek can become tentpoles around which the sport remains relevant in the lulls between Olympic peaks. They can also raise vital revenue to filter down through the coaching pyramid.
Three times as many media accreditations for the 2025 national titles were provided than in previous years, and 7plus provided hours of coverage of the meet. In the stands at the WA Athletics Stadium on Sunday was Channel Seven’s great overseer, Kerry Stokes. It is no coincidence the network has ramped up its broadcasting of athletics the past summer, not long after Stokes enjoyed an audience with Gout in December. Seven also secured rights to the 2026 Commonwealth Games on Sunday. (Although, due to a clash with the world under-20 championships, Gout may not race there.)
Labor’s election campaign launch was being held elsewhere in Perth on Sunday, and the Coalition leader, Peter Dutton, had visited the city on Friday – by coincidence appearing at the Crown Hotel, where a rejuvenated Peter Bol was staying upstairs. However, a more genuine vision for Australia’s future was offered by the events at the athletics track just west of the CBD.
As the grandstands filled before Gout’s 100m race on Thursday, one woman appeared from the corridor at the top of an aisle and looked hopefully towards the scant vacant seats in the adjacent rows. One 12-year-old boy appeared next to her, then another, then a third. They kept coming, close to a dozen by the end. It turned out she was looking after the entire group of her son’s friends, drawn to their first athletics meet by Gout. The spectators in the vicinity rearranged to accommodate the group. Why had they come? “I just wanted to plant a seed,” the mother said.
Their effort was rewarded that night, thanks to another sparkling performance from Gout. And on the entertainment continued throughout the weekend, from Lachie Kennedy’s 10-seconds-flat 100m on Friday, to Saturday and what Bruce McAvaney dubbed “the best couple of hours of nationals I’ve ever seen”. Sunday’s climax to the championships, topped off by Gout’s spectacular performance, will have McAvaney reviewing his notes.
Gout flies back to Brisbane on Monday, and will fit in three days of school, before he heads to Victoria on Friday to run in the Stawell Gift. The scheduled appearance of Gout and rival Kennedy in the 120m handicap on grass will ensure the carnival offers a worthy celebration of what has been a momentous season of Australian athletics.
The teenager and his team were were back at the Subiaco Hotel on Sunday night. “There’s no pressure on him for Stawell, everyone else can put the pressure on but we’re not,” Sheppard said. “Stawell’s about him going to have some fun.”
