Tens of 1000’s of individuals packed a stadium in Botswana to welcome sprinter Letsile Tebogo dwelling, with the nation’s first ever Olympic gold medal.
Rapturous supporters waved the nation’s blue-and-black nationwide flag because the Olympic group touched down within the capital, Gaborone, on Tuesday.
The athletes paraded the Nationwide Stadium on a rooftop bus, waving at followers having fun with a half-day vacation declared by the president to rejoice Tebogo’s success.
The 21-year-old grew to become the primary African to win the boys’s 200m when he stormed clear previous Individuals Kenny Bednarek and Noah Lyles in Paris on 8 August.
He set an African report time of 19.46 seconds and alongside together with his teammates, he gained a silver within the males’s 4x400m relay, boosting Botswana’s complete Olympic medal tally to 4.
Earlier than Tuesday’s celebration on the stadium, lots of of supporters from the southern African nation gathered at Gaborone’s airport to get the primary glimpse of their Olympic group.
Conventional dancers carrying animal skins and beads had been there to start out the get together because the athletes appeared.
President Mokgweetsi Masisi exhibited a few of his personal strikes, dancing on the tarmac as an aide held an umbrella to shelter him from the solar.
From the airport, the athletes had been transported to greet a a lot greater crowd on the nationwide stadium.
After profitable the 200m, Tebogo devoted his gold medal to his mom Seratiwa, who died in Might after a short sickness, and held up his spikes, displaying her date of beginning, to the digicam, following his victory.
“It is principally me carrying her by way of each stride that I take inside the sector,” Tebogo mentioned.
“To take her [with me], it offers me loads of motivation. She’s watching up there, and he or she’s actually, actually completely happy.”