Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated
Sport
Patrick Andres

Botswana's Letsile Tebogo Sets Continental Record in 200-Meter Win Over Noah Lyles

Botswana's Letslie Tebogo after winning the men's 200-meter race at the Olympics in Paris on Aug. 8, 2024. | Simon Bruty/Sports Illustrated

No African in history has ever been better at the 200-meter race than Botswana's Letslie Tebogo was Thursday.

At the Summer Olympics in Paris, Tebogo bested the United States's Kenny Bednarek and Noah Lyles with a time of 19.46 to win his country's first-ever gold medal.

The time represented a continental record, breaking a mark previously held by ... Tebogo. The 21-year-old Gaborone native ran 200 meters in 19.50 seconds at the World Athletics Diamond League meet in London in 2023.

Tebogo won two medals at the world championships in Budapest in 2023, taking silver in the 100-meter race and bronze in the 200-meter race.

Previously, Botswana—one of the most sparsely populated countries on Earth—had only two Olympic medals to its name. Both were athletics medals, in the men's 800-meter race in London in 2012 and in the men's 4-by-400-meter relay in Tokyo in 2021.

Given his young age, it appears likely that Tebogo will be a factor on the world stage for years to come.


This article was originally published on www.si.com as Botswana's Letsile Tebogo Sets Continental Record in 200-Meter Win Over Noah Lyles.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.