Teenage sprint sensation Gout Gout has completed a winning double at the Queensland Athletics Championships with victory in his favoured 200m event despite battling illness.
The 19-year-old stopped the clock at 20.42 seconds into a 2.1m per second headwind on Sunday.
Gout had been suffering through a bout of the flu that left him bedridden and congested in his head and chest.
The Queenslander had to sleep between races as a result of being sick, and celebrated his win by pinching his nose and pointing a finger to the sky to refer to beating the illness.
‘Knowing [that] even if I am sick, I can come out and perform, it definitely builds resilience,’ Gout said after his 200m win.
‘It was not about times, it was about getting the wins and getting races under my belt.
Gout Gout references his battle with flu and a congested head and chest after winning the 200m sprint at the Queensland Athletics Championships on Sunday
The 19-year-old sprint star said the victory is a sign he’s building resilience as he targets major competitions in the future
Gout took the 200m title with a time of 20.42 seconds after running into a headwind
‘I was a little bit under the weather the last couple of days, but it does not change – you have got to go out there and run your race.
‘It builds resilience knowing if you can do this at a state championships, knowing it is not a major competition, so being sick is not going to affect you too much.
‘[I now] know if I can do this at state championships, if unfortunately I got sick at an Olympics or something like that, I can back it up and continue.’
Gout’s time was well shy of the Australian and Oceania record of 20.02 he set last year in Ostrava, but it was still another step in the right direction early in the season.
A day earlier at the Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre, Gout got out of his sick bed to win the under-20 100m title in 10.20.
He had been battling a head cold and the wet, windy conditions were hardly conducive to fast sprinting.
Three weeks ago in the Dane Bird-Smith Shield Meet at the same venue, Gout won the 100m in 10.00 as he again came within a whisker of becoming just the third Australian to run a legal sub-10-second time.
Gout’s main target this year is the world junior championships in Oregon in August where he hopes to emulate the legendary Usain Bolt by winning the 200m.
