2023-08-21 13:28:23
Letsile Tebogo won silver in the 100m final at the Budapest World Championships in Athletics on Sunday 20 August. the first African world medal in the discipline, perhaps the start of a new era for sprinting on the continent.
Published on: 08/21/2023 – 13:28
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An entire life of waiting for African athletics, which a 20-year-old boy put an end to on Sunday in Budapest. The Batswana Letsile Tebogo, by winning silver in the 100m at the Worlds, brought back his first world charm to Africa on the queen event of athletics. 9 seconds and 88 hundredths, his new personal best, to write the history of his continent and position himself just behind Noah Lyles (9”83).
A major accomplishment. Significant enough that when he was announced at a press conference, he was greeted with applause from Lyles in particular, and from the third sprinter on the podium, the Briton Zharnel Hughes. And above all confirmation. Because it’s been a few years since the Botswana nugget, when she runs her straight line, has been drawing a lot of hope with her since her titles of double world junior champion in the 100m and double vice-world junior champion in the 200m in 2021. and in 2022.
Last year, when he was still 18, he became only the second runner in history to break the ten-second 100m barrier before the age of twenty. A few months later, he passed under 20 seconds over 200 m.
Omanyala in its shadow
Tebogo was not the only African to start Sunday’s 100m on the banks of the Danube. At his side, Ferdinand Omanyala, holder of the African record (9”77), who finished seventh in 10”07. Far from his best mark, achieved at altitude in Nairobi in 2021, the Kenyan still held the second best world performance of the year before the race.
South African Akani Simbine (29), author of a false start in the semi-finals, has already appeared on the starting grids of many international finals, without ever hitting the jackpot: 5th at the Rio Games in 2016, 4th at those in Tokyo five years later, 4th at the Doha Worlds in 2019 and 5th last year in Eugene.
Not to mention the five other athletes from the continent who were present in the semi-finals. Performances that do not go unnoticed, the African sprint has already had very good times, what it lacked are athletes ready on D-Day.
It’s time for Africa to take the lead in the sprint
However, Tebogo’s world silver medal exceeded his own expectations. “ It is really a great pride to win this silver medal. It’s a bonus for me. It wasn’t the plan, the goal, it was only the endgame “, confessed the vice-world champion. For comparison, the year of his 21 years, Usain Bolt did not yet know what it was to run the 100 m in less than 10 seconds.
Before coming to athletics, which he only seriously got into around ” 2018-2019 when I realized I could turn pro “, Tebogo, raised by a single mother with his younger brother, played football, “ winger because of my speed”. But he who wrote a page in the sporting history of his continent finally preferred the practice of an individual sport.
« I think after this medal, the continent and the country will think about having more races, and big races that people want to see Hopes Tebogo, who shares his training between Gaborone, the capital of Botswana, South Africa and Europe over the year. ” It’s time for Africa to take control of the sprint on the international stage “, he dared at the beginning of 2022 with the specialized site Runblogrun. He who goes ” try to reach the level de Bolt took the first step.
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