Gout v Kennedy was like Bolt v the T-1000 – and no one could look away | Jack Snape

 

Gout Gout poses for a selfie after coming second in the men’s 200m at the Maurie Plant Meet in Melbourne.

Gout Gout poses for a selfie after coming second in the men’s 200m at the Maurie Plant Meet in Melbourne. Photograph: Cameron Spencer

The 17-year-old sensation left an entire stadium entranced despite being denied by Kennedy in a thrilling 200m

 

Jack Snape

Gout Gout stood near his blocks, and 10,000 fans – boisterous just moments earlier – fell silent. The act was a collective show of respect, an acknowledgment they were in the presence of greatness. “It’s so quiet,” one whispered.

 

They didn’t have to be told, this mass that had packed into Lakeside Stadium on Saturday, just how lucky they were. From a raucous evening of compelling track and field, the moment before the 200m race elevated the night into something more significant. “The silence was loud,” Gout said afterwards.

 

Lachie Kennedy (right) beats Gout Gout to win the men’s 200m at the Maurie Pant Meet in Melbourne

Lachie Kennedy upstages Gout Gout on Australian athletics’ historic night Read more

This calm was befitting of an Olympic final. Unprompted and committed, on it extended, from 10 seconds to 20, then towards a minute. “This is so stressful,” another spectator murmured.

 

You had to feel for the men’s triple jumpers, caught in the middle. Just before the evening’s headliners got under way there they were, only a few steps away, starting their run-ups. “You could hear a pin drop, and even the triple jump, you hear the footsteps,” Gout said.

 

Family and friends near the pit offered a smattering of applause to the two or three who dared to break the spell. But around the rest of the stadium the only sound was the swiping to unlock phones. If they weren’t already raised aloft, the silence only encouraged more to reach for their pockets. Gout described the moment as “definitely surreal”.

 

The ruination of the s-word is one of sport’s great travesties. Most athletes turn to it in a mix of self-deprecation and an eagerness to please in response to the traditional building block of the back pages, the question: “How does it feel?” But Gout’s use was one of those few occasions when the term was maybe apt.

 

Jenny Blundell races during the women’s 3,000m with the Melbourne skyline in the background

Jenny Blundell races during the women’s 3,000m with the Melbourne skyline in the background. Photograph: Richard Nicholson/Shutterstock

Surreal has a character of the bizarre, of fantasy, of the absurd. This 17-year-old has run 200m faster than any other Australian before him, with a gait like a bike’s high gear. He promises to shoulder a nation’s hopes for a home Olympics in seven years’ time and anchor that same nation’s faith in multiculturalism. He is Adidas’s golden ticket and has already brought in millions of dollars of revenue for Athletics Australia. Yet, the third of seven children of the South Sudanese migrants Bona and Monica spent this week doing his high school exams. This same boy on Saturday left an entire stadium entranced.

 

Three hundred words into this piece and it may be worth mentioning the man who actually won the race. Lachie “not Lachlan because it makes me think my mum’s angry at me” Kennedy is the bio-mechanical opposite of Gout. Fast out of the blocks, the 21-year-old runs like the T-1000. But while John Connor’s nemesis was sent back in time, Kennedy is hurtling forward through athletics history.

 

Four weeks ago he became the equal third-fastest Australian over 100m. Last week he won the country’s first world indoor 60m medal, a silver in China. Saturday’s race made him the fifth-fastest Australian over 200m. His 20.26sec is just 0.22sec off Gout’s national record from December, and was done at a meet marked by complaints from athletes of windy, cold and slow conditions.

 

Lachie Kennedy celebrates

Lachie Kennedy celebrates winning the men’s 200m. Photograph: Cameron Spencer/

Kennedy said last week in his confident, jovial manner that Gout has brought new fans to athletics, to the benefits of all athletes. But there is no doubt that without his fellow Queenslander there would be much more ink written about the former rugby union winger.

 

He grinned when he said he was sorry to spoil the night of some attendees who came to see the teenager set another record, “but what a great race, you can’t be upset about watching something like that”.