Botswana gave a rapturous welcome to Letsile Tebogo on Tuesday because the sprinter returned dwelling with the southern African nation’s first ever Olympic gold medal. Households with youngsters, aged individuals and younger supporters waved Botswana’s sky blue, white and black nationwide flag because the Olympic crew landed again within the capital Gaborone. A whole lot of supporters had gathered on the small airport, benefiting from an impromptu half-day vacation declared by President Mokgweetsi Masisi to have a good time Tebogo’s success. Earlier than greeting the athletes, Masisi danced on the tarmac as an aide held an umbrella to shelter him from the solar.
Exterior, conventional dancers sporting animal skins and beads kicked off a welcoming ceremony.
“Tebogo has made historical past not just for Botswana however in Africa,” he later advised a crowd of greater than 20,000 folks that packed the town’s nationwide stadium as a part of the celebrations.
BREAKING: Botswana stuffed their largest stadium to welcome again sprinter Letsile Tebogo and their #Olympics crew pic.twitter.com/wQSbSI7reZ
— Larry Madowo (@LarryMadowo) August 13, 2024
The 21-year-old turned the primary African to win the boys’s 200m, in an African document time of 19.46sec, when he powered previous Individuals Kenny Bednarek and Noah Lyles in Paris on August 8.
His gold, in addition to silver within the males’s 4x400m relay, boosted the nation’s whole Olympic medal tally to 4.
“I implore you to bathe him and different individuals with any sort of items that you might have,” Masisi advised the gang.
Earlier the sports activities minister stated the sprinter would obtain two homes from the federal government as a reward. The opposite members of the relay crew would obtain one home every.
“This can be a blissful second,” the athlete advised the stadium.
“I wish to thank the nation for rallying behind me. I went by means of rather a lot,” stated Tebogo, who misplaced his mom in Might.
After crossing the 200m ending line in Paris final week, he had held as much as the cameras his trainers stamped with the date of beginning his mom, whom he has described as his inspiration.
Masisi already granted the nation of two.3 million individuals a primary half a time off to celebration on August 9.
Tebogo is barely the second African athlete to win an Olympic medal within the males’s 200m, after Namibian Frankie Fredericks took silver in Atlanta in 1996.
Botswana received their first Olympic medal on the 2012 London Video games when Nijel Amos took silver within the 800m. Its males’s 4x400m relay crew took bronze in Tokyo three years in the past.
Botswana’s success on the Paris Olympics helped to boost Africa’s medal haul to 39, two greater than on the Tokyo Video games, with Kenya scooping 11 within the French capital.
Half of the line-up on the males’s 200m the place Tebogo excelled have been athletes from Africa, with the continent rising as a contender in shorter occasions past its dominance at longer distances.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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