Letsile Tebogo credits athletics with steering him away from a criminal path

PARIS April 4, 2025: Olympic 200m champion Letsile Tebogo shared on Wednesday that athletics helped keep him focused and away from a potentially criminal life.

Tebogo, who made history last year by becoming Botswana’s first Olympic gold medalist in any sport, said he would carry the lessons from his childhood into his new role as a global ambassador for the Kids Athletics program.

“Sport has really helped me a lot because I think without sport ... probably I would be a criminal by now,” said the 21-year-old Tebogo in a video conference call with reporters.

He explained that his neighborhood was full of criminals and survival often meant joining them, but sport provided a path out. “With sport I knew I had to go to school, and with training you are tired. You don’t have time to roam the streets,” he added. Tebogo also tried to bring friends into sport, and now they play football together.

The Kids Athletics program, run by World Athletics, targets children aged four to 14, encouraging participation and enjoyment through modified track and field competitions.

Tebogo, who later joined around 1,000 children for a relay event in Botswana where he once trained, recalled that he initially preferred football. “I was more of a footballer, a left-winger. The teachers at my primary school forced me into athletics,” he said.

“At that time, athletics wasn’t popular in Botswana, until the 2018 Commonwealth Games.” Initially, athletics was just a hobby for him, but his switch to the sport paid off, culminating in his Olympic gold in Paris with an African record of 19.46 seconds, beating Kenny Bednarek and Noah Lyles.

Tebogo had previously called Lyles "arrogant" after the race, but clarified on Wednesday, saying: “When you get onto the track, it’s all about business. After the race, you can be friends. But with me, I’ll always shy away from doing that because that’s me.”

Tebogo recently came second in a 400m race in Melbourne and will compete in a 200m race in Botswana next week as he prepares for the Diamond League events in Xiamen and Shanghai on April 26 and May 3.