3 months ago
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Gout Gout is doing things Noah Lyles wasn’t doing as a teenager. Lyles admits, Gout, at 17, is better than he was.
Lyles is the best 200m runner since Usain Bolt. He has won the past three world championships 200m gold medals and on Thursday night ran 19.51 seconds – the quickest time of any sprinter in the semi-finals at the Tokyo world championships. He won the 100m Olympic gold in Paris last year and bronze in the 200m.
Gout Gout after his semi-final in Tokyo.Credit: Getty Images
On sprinting, what he says matters.
“He’s more talented than I was,” Lyles said on Thursday after his semi-final.
“I mean, there’s nothing but great talent coming up. He’s an amazing kid, he’s got a great head on him. You got a great team around him. It’s going to be interesting to see how he develops.
“The thing that I always look for when I’m looking at younger talent is, hey, are you just going to be able to train into shape because when you’re in high school, you’re able to just get races all the time, whenever you want. But as a pro, you got to race, you know, you got to come prepared already.”
Noah Lyles racing the 200m in Tokyo.Credit: AP
Gout will be able to get those races in him. The next race for the Ipswich Grammar year 12 student will be at the Queensland GPS (Great Public Schools’ Association) carnival on October 24. If it felt unfair for Gout to compete against schoolboy peers before, it will seem ridiculous now after running 20.36s at the world championships semi-finals.
Lyles – who, like Gout, is sponsored by Adidas – had the teenager come to the US to train with him early this year. He has seen him up close and knows his potential.
“(The next thing) is just seeing how they put some weight room on him as time develops naturally, not just like all at once,” Lyles said.
“He got a great coach, she’s constantly looking to be a better coach, and she’s constantly looking to be the best for him. So we’ll see ... I say the future looks bright for him.”
Lyles advice is similar to that of Usain Bolt who, asked about Gout last week, said he advised him to hasten slowly with his next step from junior to senior athlete, warned that he personally found that adjustment difficult.
Gout is respectfully soaking in the advice, still slightly disbelieving that the two great sprinters even know his name, but agrees with their view about his next phase.
“I can definitely compete with the skinny frame, but getting bigger is definitely a thing that’s got to help me, especially in my block start, and knowing that I can get that strength … I can execute my race plan even better and get faster.
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“I think, obviously, I’m a skinny build, but you know, getting stronger is the main focus for sure. And I know when I get stronger, I can go faster.”
What Gout has already done is extraordinary and captured the imagination of the Australian public. On Wednesday night, 3.2 million people tuned in on Nine and SBS to watch his heat. That was more than watched the AFL semi-finals on Friday and Saturday.
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