In a matter of weeks, Letsile Tebogo of Botswana will have gone from winning an Olympic gold medal in Paris to herding cattle before racing again in the European Diamond League.
On August 8, Tebogo surprised everyone by winning gold in the men’s 200-meter race at the Paris Olympics. Following the closing ceremony, he was greeted with heroism and flown back to Gaborone.
After the dust had settled, he was back minding his cattle as Tebogo has farming to fall back on once his athletics career comes to an end.
For now though, the 21-year-old is still rapidly rising in his athletics career as he is back in Europe as he prepares to take part in the Diamond League meeting in Lausanne on Thursday.
I spent the morning at the farm. I work as a cattle farmer. In an interview with SuperSport over the weekend, Tebogo stated, “I need to have a solid plan of what I’m going to do to increase the number of cattle [I have].”
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For me, it’s an investment. Playing sports is not a career that lasts. I must take advantage of many opportunities and try to invest money in them.
With the Olympics only a few months away, Tebogo’s world completely fell apart when his mother Seratiwa passed away in May.
Fortunately, Tebogo’s mother had witnessed him make history in 2023 by becoming the first African man to win a medal at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest.
Tebogo acknowledged that his mother’s passing had left him feeling lost.
“I think she would approve of what I accomplished. She recognized my ability. She supported me through good times and bad. I believed that her death was the end of the world for me. I was abroad for the Eugene Diamond League, so I wasn’t at home. I rearranged my entire schedule after learning the news to see what I could do.
“For me, I thought it was the end of my career. I’m grateful for the team that was around me. They just told me to take each day as it comes. Don’t put yourself under too much pressure. Step by step, I started to see the light and start to want to run again.”
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