PuraVida Sports

Botswana’s Olympic star opens up on troubled childhood as he is named World Athletics Kids’ Athletics programme ambassador

By ELIAS MAKORI

Botswana’s Olympic 200 metres champion Letsile Tobogo has opened up on his early childhood, revealing that had he not ventured into sport, he would have been a hard-core criminal, and probably dead by now.

As the 21-year-old 2024 World Athlete of The Year was on Wednesday unveiled as an ambassador for World Athletics Kids’ Athletics programme – a global initiative using athletics to inspire children into being active – he looked back at his early life and appreciated that he and his schoolmates who took up sport are still alive, with many others who preferred quick wins through crime long dead and buried.

Tebogo burst into global prominence in 2021 at the World Athletics Relays in Chorzow, Poland, and at the World Under-20 Championships in Nairobi, winning gold in the 100m and silver in the 200m at the Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani, in the latter competition. 

He went on to bag the 200m gold at the Paris Olympic Games last year, his winning time of 19.46 seconds making him the fifth-fastest man in history behind Jamaicans Usain Bolt (19.19), Yohan Blake (19.26) and the American pair of Noah Lyles (19.31) and Michael Johnson (19.32).

He was also part of Botswana’s Olympic 4x400m relay team that panned silver at the Stade de France – alongside Bayapo Ndori, Busang Kebinatshipi and Anthony Pesela – behind an American quartet.

Tebogo dedicated his Paris medals to his mother, Seratiwa Tebogo, who died on May 19 last year, just before the Olympics.

The Paris success has since thrown Botswana into an athletics frenzy, the southern Africa nation just last week winning the bid to host next year’s World Athletics Relays Championship, the first African country to host a senior World Athletics track competition.

“The Olympic gold has opened up a lot for the team, because I can’t do this alone – there’s a team behind me that’s pushing me and making me reach the limits. It (Olympic success) impacted everybody and I was happy to see young kids now interested in sports,” Tebogo said on Wednesday at a media roundtable attended by leading global athletics journalists where the Pura Vida Sports Africa was represented.

Growing up as a pupil at Gaborone’s Northside Primary School, Tebogo witnessed his friends join groups of criminals terrorizing the neighbourhood, which was then the “cool way” to survive.

But his sporting talent was noticed early as he terrorized opposing defenders as a left winger in football before taking to the track at the insistence of teachers who noted his sprinting prowess.

“Sport has really helped me a lot. Because without sport, probably I would be a criminal by now because in the neighbourhood that I was growing up in, there were a lot of criminals and we thought, at the time, that the only way to survive was to be a criminal,” Tebogo revealed in yesterday’s call.

“But through sport, I knew I had to go to school, and for training, and when you train, you get tired and you don’t have that time to roam the streets and to go into peoples’ houses.

“Once I discovered that (power of sport), I tried to pull in a few friends of mine, which greatly helped, and they are now playing football. We always talk about how if this (sport) didn’t work out, where could we be? 

“I’m now happy to see kids and people of my age trying to venture into something, because this means the crime rate reduces in the country because a lot of youngsters are the ones committing those crimes… bit by bit they are now venturing into something (else),” he looked back with a deep sense of gratitude.

In hindsight, he is also happy to have switched from football to track, delighted that his success will spur the mushrooming of fresh athletics talent in Botswana and beyond, especially with Gaborone winning the rights to host next year’s World Athletics Relays Championship. 

“I was more of a footballer, I was a left winger, but my teachers in primary school discovered my athletics talent and forced me to venture into that. Athletics was not popular in Botswana then, up until the Commonwealth Games of 2018 when it started becoming popular.

“From my side, I just wanted to see where it (athletics) would take me. Everything was football, athletics was just part-time for me.

“With team sports, the work rate is not equal – someone is working hard, the other is relaxing, knowing that someone will work for him – but in athletics, it’s about you against the eight other people and you have to put in the hard work, because if you don’t, no one is going to do it for you.”

Tebogo will be in the line-up at next weekend’s (April 12) Gaborone Continental Tour meeting, his first home 200m competition since he struck gold in Paris. And he has promised to give his home fans something special.

“It (competing in Gaborone) means a lot to me and to everybody, because it means they want to see what I did at the Olympics in the 200m final, which is something I’m planning to give out to my people out here,” he noted, adding that the 2026 World Athletics Relays in Gaborone will be equally inspirational.

“The World Relays being hosted here will be a great inspiration to the kids out there because they (top athletes) would definitely want to see themselves representing their country on home soil.

“It will inspire a lot of kids, and maybe we are going to see the new faces because right now, there are a lot of people putting in a lot of work to see themselves performing before the home crowd.”

Tebogo launched his 2025 season at the Maurie Plant Continental Tour meeting in Melbourne, Australia, last weekend, running in his non-specialty 400m and finishing second behind countryman Bayapo Ndori at the Lakeside Stadium.

Ndori won on the home straight in 41.14 seconds with Tebogo second in 42.26.

“Probably one more – but I don’t think it will be in an official race. So far that (Melbourne) was the only 400 metres, and then we’ll see how the season progresses,” Tebogo responded when asked if we will see more of him on the one-lap challenge this season.

Regarding his new role as Ambassador of World Athletics’ Kid Athletics programme, Tebogo said: “Athletics has given me so many opportunities, and I want to inspire young people to believe in themselves, dream big and enjoy the sport. 

“The Kids’ Athletics programme is about making athletics accessible and fun, and I am honoured to be part of this initiative to help develop future champions – on and off the track.”

In welcoming the African star’s new role, World Athletics President Sebastian Coe described Tebogo as a “humble” athlete who is inspiring a whole generation of youngsters.

“I am always delighted when a talent like Letsile Tebogo emerges through our competition structures. It shows other young talented athletes the pathway,” Coe said.

“Letsile is confident, determined and humble and is already inspiring a whole generation of young potential athletes and children as they learn to make sport part of every day. This is why I am so pleased that Letsile has agreed to be an ambassador for Kids’ Athletics.”

According to World Athletics, the collaboration with Tebogo will see the star taking part in the “Relay Around the World Challenge” ahead of this year’s Kids’ Athletics Day – an annual celebration of children being active and participating in athletics – which will take place on May 7.

“This year’s theme, Relay Around the World, is inspired by the upcoming World Athletics Relays in Guangzhou, China. The challenge is the biggest, most inclusive Kids’ Athletics participation activity yet, designed to inspire the athletes of tomorrow and get kids moving everywhere,” World Athletics noted yesterday.

The Kids Athletics Programme has been implemented by over 150 national athletics federations, and reached about 13 million children worldwide.