More than a million people tuned in to watch Gout Gout – sorry, the Maurie Plant Meet – on TV on Saturday night. They left knowing another name: Lachlan Kennedy.

If they didn’t know him before – and seriously, very few did – then they know him now. He is the one who upstaged the star and stole the show.

Gout Gout and Lachlan Kennedy after the 200m.Credit: Luke Hemer

No one came to watch Kennedy, not this time. On a night that brought crowds in numbers not seen for a serious domestic athletics meet – not counting the quirky Nitro Bolt-fest – they came to see Gout. But Kennedy turned up, and won the sprint double – the 100m and the 200m.

At the national championships in Perth in a fortnight, they will turn up, and tune in, for both.

Gout now has something in Australia he hasn’t had before – competition.

The wunderkind accustomed to seeing nothing but blue track had to, like the rest of the crowd and huge TV audience, train his eyes on Kennedy ahead of him and wonder if he could catch him.

Kennedy, 21, was already the fastest man in Australia, if you measure over 60m,........

© The Sydney Morning Herald