Olympic 200m champion underlines the facility of sport as he turns into ambassador for World Athletics programme
Letsile Tebogo is aware of first hand simply how highly effective sport could be. Not solely has the Olympic 200m champion seen and skilled the life-changing results of his golden efficiency in Paris final summer season, however he additionally admits that pursuing athletics within the first place saved him from a lifetime of crime.
“Sport has actually helped me quite a bit as a result of I believe that, with out it … most likely I’d be a legal by now,” stated the 21-year-old. “Within the neighbourhood the place I grew up there have been a whole lot of criminals, it was the one technique to survive.
“However then with sport I knew I needed to go to high school and from college to coaching and with that you’re drained. You don’t have time to roam the streets and go into individuals’s homes.
“So as soon as I found that I attempted to tug in just a few mates of mine … and now they’re enjoying soccer. We at all times discuss if this didn’t work out, the place would we be?”
He added: “I’m now completely satisfied to see a whole lot of youngsters and folks of my age attempting to enterprise into one thing, as a result of now it means the crime charges are lowering within the nation as a whole lot of children are those which are committing these crimes.”
The considered serving to the subsequent technology to comply with an analogous path to him was on the forefront of Tebogo’s thoughts as he spoke to a gaggle of reporters through video name from Botswana on Wednesday (April 2). Following the interview, the World Athlete of the 12 months met with round 1000 kids – together with pupils from his previous major college – on the grounds the place he used to coach.
He was talking on the announcement of him turning into an envoy for World Athletics’ Children’ Athletics programme, an initiative with the intention of inspiring kids internationally to be extra energetic. Tebogo will even participate within the Relay Across the World Problem forward of this yr’s Children’ Athletics Day – which is able to happen on Might 7.
The World Championships 100m silver medallist didn’t begin out with athletics ambitions.
“I used to be extra of a footballer, a left-winger,” he stated, earlier than including: “The lecturers at my major college compelled me into athletics.
“[Athletics] wasn’t that fashionable in Botswana again then, till the Commonwealth Video games of 2018. From my aspect I simply wished to see the place it will take me. Athletics was only a part-time factor for me.”
Letsile Tebogo (Getty)
It’s to athletics’ nice profit that he caught with it and Tebogo heads into this new out of doors season with the next profile than ever earlier than. He has competed 4 occasions to date in 2025, throughout 400m, most lately coming second to compatriot Bayapo Ndori on the Maurie Plant Assembly in Melbourne.
It gained’t be lengthy earlier than his focus returns to the shorter sprints, nevertheless, and he will likely be in motion over 200m on the Golden Grand Prix in Botswana on April 12. The yr will culminate within the World Championships in September and there’s a lot anticipation concerning the resumption of Tebogo’s rivalry with Olympic 100m and three-time world 200m champion Noah Lyles.
The American had been favorite to take gold over the half-lap contest in Paris however completed third as Tebogo grew to become his nation’s first ever Olympic champion and the fifth-fastest man in historical past along with his profitable time of 19.46. It later emerged that Lyles had examined optimistic for Covid.
Within the post-race press convention final August Tebogo said he couldn’t be the brand new face of athletics as a result of he was not “an smug or loud particular person like Noah”. Nevertheless, he insisted the pair hit it off and clarified these remarks.
“If you get onto the monitor, it’s all about enterprise,” he stated. “If you end, you could be mates, life goes on. However the ‘vanity’ [of Lyles]… he’s good for promoting our sport. However, with me, I’ll at all times shrink back from doing that as a result of that’s me.
“All people who’s there on the line-up is a rival. You can not remove any person as a result of he didn’t carry out properly on the 2024 Olympics or 2023 World Championships.”
Go to right here for extra data on World Athletics’ Children Athletics Programme