If not for sports, I'd probably be a criminal by now: Tebogo

Botswana's Olympic champion says his medal has given kids at home a direction in life which often drifts into a world of crime

- Rutvick Mehta

MUMBAI: Letsile Tebogo, Botswana's 200m Olympic champion, spent his Wednesday morning in the company of over 1,000 kids and on the same tracks that he trained during his primary school years. "The memories, the flashbacks... that I came from here and now I'm a star," Tebogo said.

That stardom sparked brightest on the night of August 8, 2024, at the Stade de France in Paris, when Tebogo won a spectacular gold in the 200m final, clocking 19.46s and beating American rival Noah Lyles. The timing made the 21-year-old the fifth fastest timing in history, and the medal gave Botswana their first Olympic champion.

For the South African country with a population of around 25 lakh, the achievement was history-defining (a half-day national holiday was declared). For their most accomplished athlete, it was life-altering. Much like Neeraj Chopra's first track and field medal at the Tokyo Olympics gave an unparalleled shot in the arm to Indian athletics, Tebogo's Paris gold showed the path to a different life for kids in Botswana who, as Tebogo puts it, often drift into the world of crime and drugs. "Everybody's life changed after that day," Tebogo told media on a virtual call after being announced as the World Athletics' new Kids Athletics Ambassador.