Olympic males’s 200m dash champion Letsile Tebogo believes Australian teenager Gout Gout can safe a spot in athletics historical past books if he maintains his stage of motivation.
The two observe stars will seem on the Maurie Plant meet in Melbourne on Saturday, however is not going to race one another.
Tebogo has chosen to compete within the 400m whereas Gout will race within the climax of the night schedule, the Peter Norman Memorial 200m, which additionally contains Australia’s present quickest man Lachie Kennedy and nationwide champion Calab Law.
Gout beat Norman’s Australian report in December which had stood for greater than half a century with a time of 20.04s.
Tebogo – who overcame Noah Lyles and Kenny Bednarek within the Paris 200m remaining with a time of 19.46s – mentioned Gout’s model is “top notch” and he’s set to be “the next big thing” for Australia.
“He can be one of the best, he could be in the history books if he continues with the hunger that he has right now, he could go very far,” the 21-year-old mentioned.
But he warned that Gout – as a 17-year-old – ought to bear in mind to take issues sluggish and shouldn’t all the time compete in opens races simply because he can.
“My advice to his coach and people around him would be – even if he can beat these seniors on Saturday – don’t let him stay too much on the seniors, because everybody is watching,” the Botswana athlete mentioned.
“If he beats the seniors, what’s going to be next? So after this, back to his age [group] and slowly but surely, he will get there.”
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The meet in Melbourne guarantees a highly-anticipated showdown between Gout and Lachie Kennedy, the world indoor silver medallist for 60m who has emerged as Australia’s quickest man with a time of 10.03s over 100m earlier this month.
He mentioned he hoped to crack the 10-second barrier this Saturday within the 100m, and he was assured he might again up and enhance on his private better of 21.19s within the 200m later within the night.
“I just want to be able to see where I am compared to someone like Gout, who obviously is pretty much there when it comes to the 19-second barrier,” he mentioned.
A packed scheduled additionally features a aggressive John Landy Memorial mens 1500m together with Cameron Myers, Olli Hoare, Peter Bol, Adam Spencer and 15-year-old Kiwi star Sam Ruthe, who turned the first 15-year-old to run a mile in under four minutes just a week ago.
Eleanor Patterson will compete within the girls’s excessive bounce per week after her silver at the world indoors, and the ladies’s 1500m will function Olympians Linden Hall, Claudia Hollingsworth, and Abbey Caldwell.
Australian Athletics chief govt Simon Hollingsworth mentioned he anticipated a close to capability crowd of 10,000 at Lakeside for the game’s annual showpiece occasion, given ticket gross sales are up virtually 50% on final yr.
“We’re in for a really golden decade, and we’re at the start of that, and already the performance is incredible,” he mentioned.
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“We had our best Olympics [in Paris] since 1956 and that was a different era, and we’ve built on that. We’ve just finished second in the medal count at the world indoors and we don’t even have an indoor track in Australia.”
He mentioned Australia “was batting pretty deep” with its expertise and the “phenomenal” Gout had helped introduce athletics to new followers, permitting the game faucet into extra business alternatives.
“The more interest in the sport, the more we can track eyeballs, the more we can attract commercial partners,” he mentioned.
“It would have an impact, but I don’t want to pile too much on Gout, because he’s a young, 17-year-old boy who’s still at school. We want to support him to achieve his dreams, that’s the number one goal.”
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