Athlete of the Year Tebogo dedicates to his team
A season of historic achievement by 21-year-old Letsile Tebogo was richly acknowledged in Monaco on Sunday as he was announced as the men’s World Athlete of the Year at the World Athletics Awards 2024.
Tebogo, who also accepted an award as men’s track athlete of the year, earned Botswana’s first Olympic gold medal in any sport as he won the 200m at the Paris Games in an African record of 19.46.
The next day he helped Botswana reach the men’s 4x400m final, where his extraordinary final leg earned silver behind the United States in an African record of 2:54.53. His split of 43.04 is among the fastest ever recorded.
Tebogo’s Paris showing – which was marked with a national holiday – had begun with a sixth-place finish in the 100m final in a national record of 9.86.
Speaking on stage at the Theatre Princesse Grace in Monaco, Tebogo – who had dedicated his Olympic performances to his late mother Seratiwa – said: “It feels good to know that what you have been putting in throughout the year is now giving you some of the fruits that you have been waiting for. I’m grateful for the team that was around me.”
Looking ahead, he added: “I believe the next year is going to be a different Letsile; he’s going to be a changed and a mature one.”
Speaking on the 200m win in Paris he said
“It was a great feeling. I didn’t expect the President to give out a holiday in my honour, but it was one of the greatest feelings ever. When I went into that race, the first thing I thought about was changing the perspective of Africa from being a long-distance continent into being a short-distance continent. I looked at a lot of factors and I knew I had everything in me to make it happen.
“So that made me more hungry to succeed. The night before the final I had to set down why I had started on this journey and what I wanted to achieve. At the end of the Olympic Games, would I achieve what I wanted to achieve? So that’s how I came to my conclusion. And I also thought that a lot of people were relying on me to make everything happen.”
