Featured Image Credit: Getty
Topics: Gout Gout, Usain Bolt, Athletics, Jamaica
Ryan Smart
Australian sprint sensation Gout Gout has named his dream relay team for the 4x100 metres race.
The 17-year-old competed in the World Athletics Championships for the first time last week.
Gout made the semi-finals of the 200-metre event in Tokyo, though his fourth place finish was not enough to reach the final.
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He set a time of 20.36 seconds in a race that featured genuine medal contenders in Jamaica's Bryan Levell and Botswana's Letsile Tebogo.
To qualify, Gout would have had to have broken the 20-second barrier legally for the first time in his career.
As it was, the event in Tokyo will have been a valuable learning experience for the Queensland-born star, particularly as he got to brush shoulders with the likes of Noah Lyles and Kenny Bednarek.
Usain Bolt was also in attendance at the beginning of the Championships as he watched compatriot Oblique Seville win men's 100m gold.
Gout was not selected to represent Australia over the shorter distance, but does regularly compete over 100m - with his success in both 100m and 200m quickly earning him comparisons to Bolt.
In an interview with the Olympics published during the Championships, the 17-year-old named Bolt as one of four athletes he would pick in his dream 4x100m relay team.
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Alongside him was Bolt's Jamaican rival Asafa Powell, who broke the 100-metre world record just two months before Bolt set his 9.69 record in the final at Beijing 2008.
He never translated that pure speed to individual success on the Olympic stage, but did win gold in the 4x100m relay at Rio 2016.
Gout then picked reigning 100m Olympic champion Lyles, who won gold in the 200m and 4x100m relay in Tokyo.
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And his final choice was fellow American Justin Gatlin, who won two World Championship gold medals over 100m.
The controversial sprinter received two doping bans during his lengthy career, which expunged his world record 100m time of 9.77.
In 2017, he defeated Bolt in the Jamaican's final race to win the world 100m title in London.