After becoming the first African sprinter to be crowned Olympic 200m champion in Paris, Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo received a triumphant welcome on his return home. At 21, he is more than ever asserting himself as one of the new big names on the track.
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” It was a proud moment to see thousands of people come for me. There was also the support and love from neighboring countries, and from the African continent, it was extraordinary for me. “, says Letsile Tebogo, before concluding his season at the Diamond League finals in Brussels on Saturday, September 14.
The sprinter wasted no time in giving Botswana its first ever Olympic gold medal, just half a lap around the track at the Stade de France in early August: at the age of 21, he has lived up to the promise that has accompanied him since his junior successes. In 2021 and 2022, at the Under-20 World Championships, he won the 100m and won the silver medal in the 200m. This earned him early comparisons with Usain Bolt, the Jamaican sprinting legend to the eight Olympic victories.
In the meantime, the native of Kanye, in the south of the southern African country, not far from the capital Gaborone, had done more than just stand out by winning two world medals in the big leagues, in the summer of 2023 in Budapest: silver in the 100m and bronze in the 200m. But it was the Olympic gold won on the purple track of the Stade de France that changed everything. This means a lot to the African continent. : now we see that Africa exists on the sprint map, the message had to be clear and concise “, he stressed on the evening of his coronation.
Also read2024 Olympics: Letsile Tebogo wins 200m gold, a historic medal for Botswana
Triumphant return to Botswana
Since then, off the track, Tebogo has enjoyed a memorable reception upon his return to Botswana, with ” more than 30 000 people at the stadium and along the road “And in Rome he met Pope Francis. “I believe that my life has changed, and also that I have changed many lives in my country, and for the continent. : I showed them that, even against all odds, anything is possible. “, says the young sprinter.
His historic Olympic gold also earned him a host of rewards: dozens of cattle, as well as cows and a few goats, and two houses. I’ll probably rent them because I’m not moving out of my mom’s house. “, which he lost in May and whose date of birth he had inscribed on his pointe shoes”to be able to feel her with me in everything I go through “.
One day on 400m?
On the track, the new Olympic champion has become a distinguished guest at pre-meeting press conferences, like the pole vaulting phenomenon Armand “Mondo” Duplantis or the Dutch Femke Bol, and continues to win, from Lausanne to Zurich, via Chorzow and Rome. With style, and despite a hectic training and daily life. On the Swiss tracks, he posted the third and fourth best times in the 200m of his young career (19”55 and 19”64). In the Italian capital, even by slackening his effort, he ran the 100m one hundredth off his personal best, in 9”87.
Comfortable in the 100m and 400m – he shared the Olympic silver in the men’s 4x400m in Paris –, Tebogo outlined, on Thursday, September 12, the possibility of setting a time for himself in the track, perhaps in 2026, if he has shone in the 100m and 200m at the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo by then. In the meantime, he does not feel “not yet as a face of athletics ” like the American Noah Lyles, the 2024 Olympic 100m champion. ” I just won a gold medal, that’s all. He’s been there, consistent over the years. I’d say I could be if I’m consistent too. »