How Letsile Tebogo is taking a leaf from the Usain Bolt playbook as he sets his sights towards Paris

Deji Ogeyingbo has written a number of items on the younger sprinter from Botswana, Letsile Tebogo. 

After a ground-breaking season, Letsile Tebogo is poised to take Paris 2024 by storm.

When fast-rising sprinter Letsile Tebogo gained himself a Silver medal within the 100m remaining on the 2023 world championships in Budapest, he echoed a couple of phrases that confirmed many individuals how swish the 20-year-old is even after he gained. 

“If I had my approach, I might give my medal to Akani Simbine. He deserves it greater than me.” I do know my time will come ultimately, however I’m nonetheless grateful that I get to run with a number of the greatest sprinters on this planet.” How can a boy (on this context) who simply turned the primary African to win a medal within the males’s 100m on the World Championships be this kind-hearted? 

Life, for probably the most half, is aware of learn how to create humorous circumstances. Nevertheless, it all the time rewards these which are true to their recreation. For Tebogo, he may need thought that Simbine deserved the medal, having gotten to the ultimate of each main championship since 2016; the truth is he was the athlete who ran the total course, didn’t false-start, and was the second-fastest on the evening of the lads’s 100m remaining. In spite of everything, the time doesn’t make errors. 

As harsh as which will sound, Tebogo has made his personal luck, propelled by his immense expertise that we’d simply be seeing a reincarnation of Usain Bolt. It’s a phrase that’s thrown round loosely today as followers are all the time eager to see a resemblance of what made them pleased, and because the retirement of Bolt, the craving to see one thing related has seen totally different narratives introduced up. 

After all, no two athletes can ever be the identical. Completely different eras, persona varieties, and operating kinds make it virtually unimaginable for that to occur, however with Bolt setting the usual for what sprinting is now, Tebogo can solely goal to succeed in such heights. 

9.58s and 19.19s world document for the 100m and 200m nonetheless sounds completely ludicrous 14 years after the Jamaican took Berlin by storm. How about profitable a double within the 100m and 200m for 3 Olympic Video games in a row?

Whereas Bolt was the quintessential showman who drew crowds to each athletics meet, Tebogo simply nonetheless seems just like the man who does this as an afterthought. Much less we overlook, the Botswanan remains to be rising and discovering himself. What issues, finally, is what he does on the monitor.

It’s straightforward to convey up the numbers of Tebogo from this season and evaluate them to Bolt from when he was 20 years outdated, however it gained’t put issues into correct context. However as destiny would have it, that’s the place the similarities between Bolt and Tebogo start to interject. And it will get actually attention-grabbing as a result of if you happen to go deep into the numbers and medals the Motswanan churned out this yr, it shares putting similarities with Bolt’s 2007 season. 

However as we all know, it wasn’t till 2008 earlier than Bolt started to actually take the world by storm. Can we are saying the identical of Tebogo? In 2007, Bolt was seen as the following star of the game. All potential at that time. Many weren’t certain what he would flip into. Tyson Homosexual was the celebrity, and he beat Bolt to the 200m title on the 2007 World Championships in Osaka. 

A yr later, Bolt turned the narrative and have become the star of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Video games. In Could of that yr, he had additionally taken down the lads’s 100m world document. Let’s cease there for a minute and draw parallels with Tebogo. Having taken the junior stage by storm in 2021 and 2022 (he mimicked Bolt’s Beijing celebration on the U20 world championships in Cali by celebrating earlier than the end line), this yr was his first full yr as a senior, and though he performed second fiddle to Noah Lyles within the 100m and 200m, you get the sensation that regardless of the prowess of the American, Tebogo will unleash his full potential. 

The primary signal we noticed this yr was how Tebogo stretched Lyles within the 200m on the London Diamond League. Having damaged the African Report by clocking an astonishing 19.50s, 0.03s behind Lyles, it shot him as much as grow to be the sixth quickest 200m runner of all time. “Often, I do the overtaking within the final 100m, however I used to be stunned once I noticed him (Tebogo) operating at me.” These have been the phrases of Lyles previous to the world championships in Budapest. 

In Budapest, Tebogo wasn’t seen as a favourite to get a medal. He alluded to it, too. A spot within the remaining was all he had craved and was hopeful about how far he had progressed within the occasion he hadn’t mastered. Like Bolt, the 200m was his specialist occasion. So, it was shocking to see that he had picked a Silver within the shorter dash. A couple of days later, he adopted by way of with one other Bronze within the 200m. 

Tebogo completed his season with a Private Better of 9.88s within the 100m, 19.50s within the 200m, 31.52s within the 300m and 44.75s within the 400m. Extra importantly, the child hasn’t even begun to scratch the floor of his potential. Paris 2024 remains to be over 10 months away, and one can’t however assist see how he’s turning into a full man. By the point the Olympics got here, he would have turned 21, the identical yr Bolt turned King. Who says Tebogo can’t take up the throne from Lyles by then?