Week in Review: Tebogo on pace for a fast summer
Botswanan's stellar performances in long sprints could foreshadow dynamite season in 100 and 200 meters
It will be very interesting to see how Letsile Tebogo performs in the 100 and 200 meters later this year. For the 20-year-old Botswanan has gotten off to a dynamite start in 2024 when it pertains to his sprinting at the 300- and 400-meter distances.
His latest superb performance came when he ran 44.29 seconds in winning the 400 in the Association of South Africa Grand Prix 2 meet in Pretoria a week ago Monday (March 18).
The time was the fastest in the world this year, lowered his previous best of 44.75 from last season, and came a month after he had set a world best of 30.69 in the 300 in the Curro Podium meet, also in Pretoria, on Feb. 17.
“I’m pretty happy, even though this wasn’t the plan that we wanted to execute,” Tebogo was quoted as saying in a post on the timeslive site. “We wanted to see if the body will get tired on the last 100, which it did. I think we’ll go back to the drawing board and analyse the video.”
The video will show Tebogo getting off to a good start, taking control of the race after the first 200 meters, entering the home straightaway with a large lead while maintaining his form, and expanding his advantage during the final 100 meters of the event, despite easing up noticeably during his final four or five strides.
Tebogo probably cost himself several hundredths of a second by stepping off the gas at that juncture, but he still finished more than a second and a half in front of compatriot Anthony Pesela (45.93), who had run 44.58 in winning the 2021 World Athletics U20 (under 20) Championships in Nairobi, Kenya.
While Nairobi’s elevation of more than 5,400 feet (1646 meters) no doubt aided Pesela’s 44.58 clocking and Pretoria’s altitude of more than 4,300 feet (1,310 meters) helped Tebogo’s time in the 400 last week and in the 300 last month, there is no denying the immense talent of the smooth-striding Botswanan.
He is a young man who posted bests of 10.68 in the 100 and 21.12 in the 200 at the age of 16 in 2019 before improving to 10.49 and 20.71 in 2020, despite running in a total of four races in February and March of that year before the COVID-19 pandemic led to the cancellation of most of the outdoor track and field season.
In 2021, he won the 100 and placed second in the 200 in the World U20 Championships and lowered his bests to 10.11 and 20.31.
Then came a 2022 season in which he duplicated those places in the World U20 Championships in Cali, Colombia, in August, with then-personal bests of 9.91 and 19.96, respectively.
His first foray into the World senior championships in Eugene, Oregon, the month prior to the U20 meet was an up-and-down experience for him. He won his qualifying heat of the 100 in 9.94, which was a world U20 record at the time, but finished seventh in his semifinal in 10.17. However, any concerns about his ability to handle the pressure of competing at the highest levels were eliminated last year when he lowered his personal bests to 9.88 in the 100 and an African record of 19.50 in the 200, and won a silver medal in the former race and a bronze in the latter in the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary.
A muscle strain that he sustained during the World Championships contributed to an eighth-place finish in the 100 in the Prefontaine Classic at the end of last season. But he has shown zero residual effects of the injury this year.
His world-best time of 30.69 seconds in the 300 bettered the previous mark of 30.81 set by Wayde van Niekirk of South Africa in 2017 and led 2017 World 100 champion Justin Gatlin of the U.S. to declare in a Tidal League podcast that Tebogo had turned “the 200 world upside down” because he was someone “who’s maturing into his event.”
He added that the Botswanan “looks a little bigger. He looks a little stronger, especially up top.”
While that might be the case, I do not envision Tebogo ever becoming as heavily muscled as many elite sprinters.
He reminds me of American great Tommie Smith in that regard.
Smith set a world record of 19.83 seconds in winning the 200 in the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City after previously lowering the world record to 44.5 in the 400 while on his way to a 440-yard clocking of 44.8 in 1967. Like Tebogo, he was a lean, mean, sprinting machine.
He didn’t possess the big biceps and pectoral muscles of many of his contemporaries, but the 6-foot-4 Smith was silky smooth and it was a thing of athletic beauty to watch him zip down a track in full flight.
I would even argue that part of Smith’s greatness was due to the fact that his slender physique meant he did not have to expend the precious extra energy that would have been required to propel himself down the track had he had a more heavily-muscled upper body.
For his part, Tebogo said after the race last week that he doesn’t plan on running another 400 in the foreseeable future.
Instead, he is looking forward to the remainder of the 2024 season that he hopes will culminate with him producing his best performances when the finals of the men’s 100 and 200 meters are held in the Olympic Games in Paris on August 4 and 8, respectively.
“My plan is to rest for the next week or two,” he was quoted as saying in a post on the mmegionline site following his 44.29 clocking in the 400. “My performance tonight shows that the speed is there. Everything is going according to plan. I want to compete in Diamond League meets so that I get used to other top athletes. That will also assist me to be confident when I meet them at the Olympics.”
Another Botswanan world leader: While Letsile Tebogo garnered most of the headlines from the Association of South Africa Grand Prix 2 meet in Pretoria on March 18 when he lowered his personal best to 44.29 seconds in the men’s 400 meters, he was not the only Botswanan athlete who posted a yearly world-leading mark during the competition.
Compatriot Kethobogile Haingura had a breakthrough race in the meet when he won the men’s 800 in 1:43.94 to finish well in front of Edmund Du Plessis of South Africa, who clocked 1:45.49 in second place.
The 25-year-old Haingura topped his previous best of 1:45.14 with his performance while bettering the Olympic qualifying standard of 1:44.70 and becoming the second Botswanan to have run under 1:44 in the 800.
Nigel Amos, who set the Botswanan record of 1:41.73 while finishing second in the Olympic Games in London in 2012 when he was 18, has broken the 1:44 barrier 19 times during his career. However, he is currently serving the second year of a three-year suspension issued by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) because a urine sample he provided on June 4, 2022, tested positive for metabolites of the banned substance GW1516.
The substance was developed to help build endurance and burn fat but was found to cause cancer during tests on rodents. Anti-doping organizations have warned athletes not to use it on safety grounds.
While the 29-year-old Amos, who is tied for third on the all-time performer list, will not be eligible to compete again until July 12 of 2025, Haingura has lowered his personal best three times since beginning the year with a top mark of 1:47.16.
His first lowering came on March 2 when he ran 1:45.53 while winning the second section of the Athletics Gauteng North (AGN) League 5 meet in Pretoria by more than four seconds and he bettered that mark 12 days later when he ran 1:45.14 while placing first in the ASA Athletics Grand Prix 1 meet in Potchefstroom, South Africa.
He has yet to run a 1,500 this year, but he recorded a personal best of 3:49.93 last year as part of a double in the national championships in which he also ran 1:48.48 in the 800. He placed second in both events.
Progressing rapidly: Tsige Duguma of Ethiopia continued her upward trajectory in the the women’s 800 meters when she won the event in the African Games in Accra, Ghana, on March 19.
The 23-year-old Duguma ran a personal best and yearly world-leading time of 1:57.73 while finishing nearly a second ahead of 2019 World champion Halimah Nakaayi of Uganda, who placed second in 1:58.59.
Her time moved her to seventh on the all-time Ethiopian performer list and came 16 days after she had been victorious in the final of the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow, Scotland.
The 400 had been Duguma’s focus as recently as 2022, but with a modest hand-held best of 53.9 seconds, she turned her attention to the 800 last year and ran 1:59.40 in the Night of Athletics meet in Heusden-Zolder, Belgium, in July.
That was followed by a brief indoor season in which she ran 2:01.45 in her first-ever short track race in Gent, Belgium, on Feb. 3 and 1:59.66 in a meet in Belgrade, Serbia, 10 days later. She then posted times of 2:00.50, 1:58.35, and 2:01.90 in the three rounds of the World indoor meet before running 2:02.08 in her qualifying heat of the Africa Games a day before she controlled the final from start to finish.
Working on her speed: Mary Moraa of Kenya, the defending World champion in the women’s 800 meters, posted her third victory of the year in the 400 with a 50.57-second clocking in the African Games in Accra, Ghana, last Wednesday.
Moraa’s time was the fastest outdoor time in the world this year and it left her well in front of Esther Joseph of Nigeria, who placed second in a personal best of 51.61. Sita Sibiri of Burkina Faso finished third in a national record of 51.74.
Moraa, 23, had run 52.18 in a first-round heat and 51.55 in a semifinal prior to winning the final with the fourth-fastest time of her career. She lowered her own national record to 50.38 last year.
She was a solid five meters back of Joseph midway through the second turn in the final of the African Games, but she had cut her deficit in half entering the home straightaway, moved into first place with 60 meters to go, and then powered away from everyone during the remainder of the race.
Frequent racer: Beatrice Chepkoech of Kenya, the world record-holder in the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase, has had a busy schedule during the first three months of the year as she placed fourth in the 5,000 and first in the steeplechase in the African Games in Accra, Ghana, last week.
Those were the seventh and eighth races of the year for the 32-year-old runner who has competed in one 1,500, two 3,000s, three 5,000s, one steeplechase, and one 10-kilometer road race.
Chepkoech’s competitive season began with a 14th-place finish in the 10k Ibercaja Valencia in Spain on Jan. 14 in which she ran a personal best of 30:56 and it has also included a bronze-medal winning effort in the 3,000 in the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, on March 2 in which she set a national record of 8:22.68 that moved her to fourth on the all-time performer list.
In Accra, she ran 15:13.71 in the 5,000 while finishing fourth behind an Ethiopian trio of Medina Eisa (15:04.32), Birtukan Molla (15:05.32), and Melknat Wudu (15:07.04) on the first day of the meet on March 18. Two days later she won the steeplechase in a yearly world-leading time of 9:15.61, followed by defending Olympic champion Peruth Chemutai of Uganda in 9:16.07 and Lomi Muleta of Ethiopia in 9:26.63.
Nice start to outdoor season: Tobi Amusan of Nigeria, who had a short but productive indoor season in the women’s 60-meter hurdles, had a hand in a pair of victories in the African Games in Accra, Ghana, last Wednesday.
The 26-year-old world record-holder in the women’s 100 meters hurdles won that event in 12.89 seconds while running into a headwind of 2.1 meters per second before coming back 50 minutes later to run the anchor leg on a Nigerian team that won the 400 relay in 43.05.
Amusan finished two tenths of a second in front of second-place Sidonie Fiadanantsoa of Madagascar in the 100 hurdles, and she and Justina Tiana Eyakpobeyan, Olayinka Olajide, and Moforehan Abinusawa teamed up for a time in the 400 relay that left them nearly a second in front of runner-up Liberia at 44.02.
The 12.89 and 43.05 clockings were the fastest in the world this year.
Amusan, the 2022 World champion in the 100 hurdles, won two of her three indoor races in the 60 hurdles while twice lowering the African record in the event.
Her fastest time of 7.75 came in the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix on Feb. 4 when she finished second to Tia Jones of the U.S. (7.72), but ahead of Devynne Charlton of the Bahamas (7.76).
The 28-year-old Charlton went on to lower the world record twice, with her second world record of 7.65 coming in the final of the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, on March 3.
Welcome to the club: Muzala Samukonga bounced back from an upset loss in the men’s 400 meters earlier in the week to anchor Zambia to a come-from-behind victory in the 1,600 relay on the final day of the African Games in Accra, Ghana, last Friday.
The Zambian team of Patrick Kakozi Nyambe, Kennedy Luchembe, David Mulenga, and Samukonga won the race in a national record of 2:59.12 to finish two tenths of a second in front of Botswana, which timed 2:59.32. Nigeria placed third in 3:01.84.
The time also made Zambia the fifth African nation to have broken 3 minutes in the 1,600 relay.
Chidi Okezie of Nigeria had run a personal best of 45.06 seconds in defeating Samukonga (45.37) for the 400 title last Wednesday, but the 21-year-old Zambian ran a unofficial 44.0 split on his anchor leg in the 1,600 relay on Friday.
He was a stride behind Botswana’s Bayapo Ndori when he received the baton from Mulenga and he was about three meters back of Ndori when he entered the home straightaway. But he used his arms to really drive hard during the last 70 meters of the race and took the lead in the final 15 meters of the contest.
The future looks bright: Saad Hinti of Morocco broke a longstanding national record when he ran 48.82 seconds to win the men’s 400-meter intermediate hurdles in the African Games in Accra, Ghana, last Thursday.
The 21-year-old Hinti finished more than half a second in front of second-place Victor Ntweng of Botswana (49.38) in the race at the University of Ghana Sports Stadium while bettering his personal best of 49.32 from last year and the national record of 48.96 that had been set by Mustapha Sdad when he finished second in a qualifying heat of the World Athletics Championships in Edmonton, Canada, in 2001.
Hinti has made steady progress in the intermediate hurdles in recent years, as he had bests of 51.97 in 2021, 50.03 in 2022, and 49.32 last year.
A win is a win: Hugues Fabrice Zango of Burkina Faso saw his streak of 17-meter meets come to an end in the African Games in Accra, Ghana, last Wednesday, but he still remained unbeaten in the triple jump this year.
The 30-year-old Zango, who was competing in his first outdoor meet of the season after winning the World indoor title in Glasgow, Scotland, on March 2, was unable to jump 17 meters (55 feet 9¼ inches) or further for the first time in the past 12 meets. But his top jump of 16.97 (55-8¼) left him well ahead of the 16.24 (53-3½) best of second-place Amath Faye of Senegal.
Zango’s top jump in each of the previous 11 meets had averaged 17.40 (57-1). Included in that figure was a 17.64 (57-10½) effort that have him the gold medal in the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, last August.
Huge improvement: Last weekend was a rather quiet one on the collegiate front in the U.S., but freshman Cynteria James of the University of South Carolina made a monster jump in the women’s 100 meters on Saturday in the Weems Baskin Invitational that was held on the school’s home track in Columbia.
James had a best of 11.49 in the 100 during her senior season at Southridge High School in Miami last year, but she bettered that mark by nearly half a second on Saturday when she ran 11.01 while finishing .25 seconds ahead of freshman teammate Zaya Akins, who placed second in 11.26.
The time by James was a collegiate and yearly world-leading mark and moved her to seventh on the all-time U.S. U20 (under 20) performer list following an indoor season in which she ran 7.32 in the 60 and 23.57 in the 200.
Akins’ 11.26 clocking obliterated her previous 100 best of 11.82 from 2021 as she had focused on the 400 during her last two years at Raytown South High School in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, when she produced bests of 52.88 outdoors and 53.26 indoors.
She had lowered her personal bests to 52.23 in the 400 and 23.31 in the 200 during the recently concluded indoor season.
Unbeaten streak continues: Freshman JaMeesia Ford of the University of South Carolina won her seventh consecutive individual race of her collegiate career when she clocked 51.16 seconds in winning the women’s 400 in the Weems Baskin Invitational that was held on the school’s home track in Columbia on Saturday.
The time was a yearly outdoor collegiate-leading mark and it also bettered her previous outdoor best of 51.77 that she had run last year while winning the U20 (under 20) title in the USA Track & Field Outdoor Championships in July not long after she had graduated from Jack Britt High School in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
Ford had a superb indoor season in which she ran 22.34 in the 200 and 51.33 in the 400. The 200 clocking was a world U20 record and it came in the final of the NCAA indoor championships in which she finished well in front of senior McKenzie Long of Mississippi, who placed second in 22.51.
Rose rolls on: Michaela Rose of LSU set her second collegiate best of the year in an infrequently-run event when she timed 1:25.75 in winning the women’s 600 meters in the Keyth Talley Invitational on LSU’s home track on Saturday.
The Tiger junior’s time left her well in front of teammate Lorena Rangel-Batres, who placed second in 1:30.36. It was also substantially faster than the collegiate outdoor best of 1:28.02 that Texas A&M senior Avi’Tal Wilson-Perteete ran in 2022.
To give some perspective to Rose’s time, Britton Wilson of Arkansas lowered the collegiate indoor record to 1:25.16 in the 600 meters last year. In addition, Rose set a collegiate indoor record of 1:16.76 for 600 yards in January.
Long time coming: Tadu Abate of Ethiopia won the second marathon of his career when he ran 2:06:18 in the Wuxi Marathon in China on Sunday.
The time was a course record, the fourth-fastest performance of Abate’s career, and it gave him his first win in a marathon since he won the 2019 Hamburg Marathon in Germany in 2:08:25.
Compatriot Abay Alemu finished second in 2:06:18, followed by Nicholas Kirwa of Kenya and Jie He of China, who were each credited with times of 2:06:57 while finishing in third and fourth place, respectively.
He’s time broke the previous Chinese record of 2:07:09 set by Shaohui Yang when he finished second in the Fukuoka Marathon in Japan in December.
Kenyans swept the first three places in the women’s race as Veronica Maina set a course record of 2:24:46, followed by Rodah Jepkorir in 2:26:24 and Monica Chebet in 2:26:30.
Unfortunate withdrawal: The 45th edition of the World Athletics Cross Country Championships, scheduled to be held in Belgrade, Serbia, on Saturday (March 30), suffered a big loss last week when Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands announced that she had withdrawn from the meet.
Hassan, one of the most versatile and accomplished women’s distance runners in history, wrote in a social media post that she had changed her plans about racing in Belgrade because she wanted to continue training as she recovered from her fourth-place finish in the Tokyo Marathon on March 3.
The 31-year-old Hassan has a well-earned reputation for wanting to test the limits of her endurance. Therefore, it did come as a shock earlier this month when World Athletics announced — not long after her marathon in Tokyo — that she was going to compete in the senior women’s race of the World cross country championships for the first time.
Hassan had made history in the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021 when she became the first runner — male or female — to medal in the 1,500 (bronze), 5,000 (gold), and 10,000 (gold) in the same Olympiad.
She entered the same three events in the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, last August, but ultimately finished second in the 5,000, third in the 1,500, and 11th in the 10,000. She was in the lead in the 10,000 entering the final home straightaway, but ended up placing 11th after she fell to the track during last 30 meters of the race as she tried to fend off fast-closing Gudaf Tsegay of Ethiopia.
With Hassan out of the women’ race in Belgrade, I would not be surprised to see a powerful Kenyan team sweep the top three places in the 10-kilometer contest.
Kenya became the only country to have won all three medals in the women’s race in the same global title meet in 2017 when Irene Cheptai led the Kenyans to a 1-2-3-4-5-6 finish and a perfect 10-point score in the competition in which the combined places of a team’s top four runners determine its scoring total.
I share your impression of Tegobo looking like Tommy Smith & also believe that somatotype will suit him well as he 'grows' into his events. He's a pleasure to watch & I hope he continues to excell.