BY SEAN MCALISTER

As Letsile Tebogo crossed the finish line as the new 200m Olympic champion at Paris 2024, he slapped his hand against his chest.

The rising star from Botswana stormed to victory in an African record of 19.46 secondsin front of a roaring Stade de France crowd on Thursday (8 August), denying pre-race favourite Noah Lyles the coveted sprint double.

Lyles, who won the Olympic 100m title in dramatic fashion on Sunday, was not able to live with the impressive pace of the 21-year-old and finished third behind fellow American Kenneth Bednarek (19.62) to take bronze in 19.70.

Immediately after the race, Lyles revealed that he tested positive for COVID. The track superstar had to be helped off the track in a wheelchair.

Tebogo dedicated his country’s first-ever Olympic gold to his mother Elizabeth Seratiwa, who passed away last May. He showed his spikes, displaying her date of birth into the cameras and had the initials of her name painted on his fingernails.

“I believe she could be one of the happiest people on the planet” said an emotional Tebogo who had won 200m bronze at last year’s world championships.

Tebogo also paid tribute to the people of Africa, as the first sprinter from the continent to ever claim an Olympic gold medal in the men’s 200m.

“It means a lot to the African continent because now they see Africa as a sprinting home,” he said. “So we just had to make sure that the message is loud and clear.”

“It didn’t take so long, they were just waiting for me to step up.”

The new African star is one of more than 600 IOC scholarship-holders at Paris 2024.

LETSILE TEBOGO: FROM FOOTBALL HOPEFUL TO OLYMPIC CHAMPION

As a youngster growing up in Botswana, Tebogo was a talented athlete with a love for football. However, while speed was unquestionable even back then, his ability with a ball at his feet was less obvious.

“I used to run past people and won medals. I also played football. Every time though I went to play football I was being benched,” he explained in an interview with Runblog.com.

So football’s loss turned out to be track & field’s gain, as the sprinter went from strength to strength, becoming the second U-20 athlete ever to break the 10-second barrier in the 100m with a world record run of 9.96 seconds aged just 18.

At last year’s World Athletics Championships in Budapest, he continued his dramatic rise, winning silver to become the first-ever African runner to reach the 100m podium at the Worlds.

While this was an incredible moment for his country, Tebogo was already thinking about the wider significance of the medal. This was not just a victory for a nation but a continent so famous for its distance runners that was now producing sprinters to compete with the traditional powerhouses of the USA and the Caribbean.

“This medal isn’t for me, it’s for Botswana, for Africa,” he said at the time. “Because Africa has been short of medals in men’s sprints.”

While this year began with hope and promise, tragedy struck when Tebogo’s mother passed away earlier in May. For the young sprinter, with his first Olympics in front of him, this competition would not be just a chance to represent Africa, it would be an opportunity to honour his mother.

In the 100m final last Sunday, Tebogo was one of the athletes most fancied for the podium. However, in the closest final in history, he was edged out of the medal positions, finishing the race in sixth.

Small margins, he would learn, can be the difference between glory and deep-cutting disappointment.

But just four days later, flanked by the world’s most feared sprinters, Tebogo took the race by the scruff of the neck, recording his greatest victory and with it paying a memorable tribute to his mother.

“She’s watching up there, and she’s really, really happy,” he said.

PARIS 2024 ATHLETICS: MEN’S 200M PODIUM

Gold: Letsile Tebogo (Botswana)

Silver: Kenneth Bednarek (USA)

Bronze: Noah Lyles (USA)

SOURCE: PARIS2024