Tebogo’s historic 200m gold medal in the Paris Olympics is a first for Botswana and for Africa, confirming the rise of African sprinters in a discipline long dominated by Jamaica and the United States.
Letsile Tebogo of Botswana became the first African to win the Olympic 200 metres in a dramatic race at Paris’s Stade de France on Thursday. The 21-year-old powered to victory in an African record of 19.47 seconds (0.28 seconds short of Usain Bolt’s record) taking him to fifth on the all-time list.
He is also the first Motswana to win an Olympic gold medal. Tebogo surprised the pundits, who had anticipated the US 100m champion Noah Lyles emulating Bolt’s sprint doubles. In one of the densest and fastest 200m races in the history of sport, four runners came in under 20 seconds, with Lyles exiting the track in a wheelchair with a bronze medal, and then revealing that he had tested positive for Covid-19. Lyles later posted on Instagram: “I believe this will be the end of my 2024 Olympics.”
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