The humble and reserved Olympic champion of Male Male Letsile Tebogo is not one for the hyperbole.
Then, when the current world athlete athlete of the year forecasts a brilliant future for the drop of 17 -year -old Australian phenomenon, it is worth sitting and realizing.
“It can be one of the best in history books if he continues with the hunger he has at this time,” Tebogo told journalists in Melbourne.
“I could go very far.”
Tebogo is in Australia to compete at the Maurie Plant Meet on Saturday night at the Melbourne Lakeside stadium.
It comes from an excellent 2024 season, in which he ran the fifth fastest of 200 meters of all time (19.46 seconds) when he won the first Olympic Botswana gold medal in the Paris Games.
Gout will play the Peter Norman Memorial 200m in Melbourne, but will not face Tebogo, who has chosen to manage the 400m.
Letsile Tebogo won gold in the 200 male meters at the Paris Olympic Games last year. (Getty images: Andrzej Iwanczuk)
The arrival of Tebogo to the Australian soil is produced following the last spectacular performance of Gout, a 19.98 wind -assisted in the 200m 200m final in the Queensland Athletics Championship on March 16.
That earlier day, he ran 20.05 with the help of a legal wind, the time only 0.01 outside the Australian record that established in December, just weeks from his 17th birthday.
Got broke the 56 -year national brand of Peter Norman (20.06) when he ran 20.04 in the Australian championship of all schools in Brisbane.
The performance was faster than the best moment of Usain Bolt as a 16 -year -old boy, 20.13 and second behind 19.84 by American Erriyon Knightton in the classification of all time U18.
Tebogo has been watching the drop and likes what he sees in Queensland’s teenager.
“His progression so far, I am impressed with how it comes,” said Tebogo.
‘Rome was not built in one day’
Tebogo has experienced the burden of having expectations on the shoulders of a young athlete.
It was announced on the international stage as an 18 -year -old claiming gold and silver in the 100m and 200m in the World Athletics Championship of 2021 in Nairobi.
In April 2022, just over a month before turning 19, Tebogo established a World U20 record when 9.96 ran in the capital of Botswana, Gaborone.
He lowered the brand twice in the same year with efforts of 9.94 and 9.91, directing the latter to successfully defend his 100 -meter crown in the world’s world titles held in Cali, before graduating from the Junior ranks in 2023.
A year of his victory at the Paris Olympic Games, Tebogo arrived at the podium in the World Athletics Championship in Budapest collecting silver and bronze behind the American showman Noah Lyles in the 100m and 200m.
The change of the state of the Junior star to the Olympic champion did not happen during the night for Tebogo.
Tebogo says he learned the value of patience after emerging on the world stage when he was a teenager. (AAP: With Chronis)
And there was a advice that he received during his adolescence that gave a very necessary perspective when he made the transition.
“They told me that Rome was not built in one day,” said Tebogo, who still has the 100m U20 world record.
“At first I couldn’t get the concept, but I got it later.”
The patience was valuable for Tebogo, who also ended up sixth in the final of the Paris Olympic Games in a better personal time of 9.86.
He believes that Gout and his support team, led by coach Di Sheppard, will only benefit from adopting the same approach.
“Slow but sure, he will get there,” Tebogo said.
Although 400M is not the favorite Tebogo event, it has a world class PB of 44.29, which it directed in Pretoria last March.
He was a member of the 4x400m relay team of Botswana in Paris, winning silver behind the United States.
