How his second 100m split compares to Usain Bolt
The second half of Gout Gout’s record-breaking 200-meter race on Sunday lasted well under 10 seconds, faster than the final 100-meter run in which Usain Bolt broke the world record.
It’s not a junior world record, it’s an adult record.
Comparisons between Gut and Bolt will become obnoxious, if they haven’t already been made, but they’re inevitable right now. Bolt is the only sprinter who compares Gout fairly in his youth.
There will come a point when we stop comparing everything he does to Bolt, but not now.
Gout’s second 100 meters of his national championship run of 19.67 seconds in Sydney was faster than the second 100 meters that Bolt ran for a world record (open age record) of 19.19 in Berlin in 2009.
Gout completed his second 100 meters on Sunday, running 9.24 seconds. In Berlin, Bolt ran the second 100 meters in 9.27 seconds. Of course, this means that the Jamaican raced around the corner in the first 100 meters in Germany in 9.92 seconds.
Looking further at Bolt, he was the first person to break 10 seconds by running 100 meters around the bend. In track and field, splits don’t come as easily as they do in swimming, so if there are others like Yohan Blake or Michael Johnson running sub-10s in the bend, we don’t hear about them.
If you examine Gout’s race in more detail and color it by the numbers, you can see how he competed.
Gut’s routine when he falls into the blocks is now so familiar: He has both feet in the blocks, both knees on the ground, he bends over, puts his head on the rails, makes a small cross sign towards his face, then puts one of the two gold crosses on the chains over his mouth.
We’ve seen these so many times that it seems normal, but the starting pattern isn’t that common. Gut squats down in American style, placing both knees on the ground.
It has been a long, multi-year process for his coach Di Sheppard to develop his young body since he began coaching him at Ipswich Grammar secondary school. Gout’s Achilles is as tight as guitar strings, and he nearly falls flat on his face when he first starts squatting on the blocks. Instead he started lowering both knees to feel more stable.
His body needed constant stretching to loosen up his Achilles and calves, and he is still building size and strength in his rear end and upper legs.
Tightness in his Achilles is one of the reasons for his relatively slow start. But clearly the work they do has an impact.
How was the race played?
Gout’s response was good. It comes in sharply, quickly, with good power and gets out of the initial drive phase quite quickly.
Calab Law and Aidan Murphy started stronger in the inner lanes and staggered their way towards it quite quickly.
Gut’s first 50 meters was 5.95 seconds. He really lengthened his stride after passing the narrowest part of the bend. His second 50 meters took just 4.48 seconds but he still couldn’t lead the race and in fact Murphy held him until halfway.
Gut, like Bolt, is famous for his long strides that create a slingshot effect coming out of a corner.
Gout’s third 50 meters was completed in 4.52 seconds. His last 50 seconds while cruising and striding were 4.72 seconds.
That’s the tricky part about sprinters: it looks like Gout is getting past Murphy and away from Law. It wasn’t him.
Sprinting is about who can slow down the slowest. In other words, who can reach maximum speed the fastest, hold that speed for the longest time, and tire the slowest.
Gut managed to get relatively tired and slow down to the line slower than the field. So even though it looked like he was speeding up, he wasn’t actually slowing down as fast as everyone else.
Gut crossed the line and checked two sets of numbers. Time and wind. As Paul Keating said, these were a beautiful set of numbers.
The time was 19.67 seconds and the wind was a legal +1.7 meters per second, just below the +2 mps threshold for over-assist. Perfect.
Before the race, Gout thought he could run 19.75. He was wrong. He had to settle for being faster.
Gut is rarely wrong in his predictions.
In an interview with Age And messenger of the sun In December 2024, the day before their record-breaking run at the Queensland All Schools championships, he spoke of his plans:
“There are stepping stones we want to complete, so the first one will of course be Peter Norman. [national 200m] record, 20.16s.”
It broke the next day.
“And we just keep accelerating from there, and of course the big turning point is the lower 20s. Just keep accelerating after that.”
“Under 10 [seconds for the 100m] “It will definitely happen.”
This was less than 18 months ago, which is part of the extraordinary course of Gout. He marks his career-defining milestones by the month, not the year.
His other prediction was that he would double his Olympic sprint gold at the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane. It was a goal, but for Gut, goals and predictions became one and the same. You don’t doubt it.
Michael Gleeson is an award-winning senior sports writer specializing in AFL and athletics.Connect with: X or email.
