1 month ago
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Botswana sprint star Letsile Tebogo got to bed at 4am on Friday after winning the men’s 200m at the Paris Olympics the night before, and then got up less than four hours later to help his country qualify fastest for the 4x400m relay final.
Tebogo said he had been asleep for two hours when he was first woken up by a teammate.
“It wasn't easy [recovering after the 200m final] because I slept around 4am and at 6am [Bayapo] Ndori woke me up.
“He said, ‘We are going for the 4x4 today, so can you come with us?’
“I told him, ‘Let me just nap an hour’ And then he went to shower ... When he finished, he woke me up again and I just told myself, ‘I think I’ll just wake up and just go and do this because there’s nothing [else] to do,” said Tebogo.
He had to take the place of Leungo Scotch who had been supposed to start for the Southern African team, but had suffered a knock.
Tebogo ran a great first leg, going around the Stade de France track in 44.33 sec, the fastest opening lap of the heats.
World Relay champions Botswana clocked 2 min 57.76 sec, the fastest time of the morning, more than a second quicker than the next fastest, Great Britain.
The Botswana nation was given Friday afternoon to celebrate Tebogo’s 200m victory — he was the first African to win gold in this event at the Olympics.
But he said he wouldn’t be taking it off.
“We still have the final to do tomorrow, so I believe my rest will come after the final tomorrow.
“I was happy that everybody was given time to rest up and just enjoy their day. It means a lot because they stayed up last night. You could see the videos all over social media that everybody was happy back home.”
South Africa, who finished second behind Botswana at World Relays, are also in Saturday’s relay final, scheduled for 9pm.
