By Lori Ewing
MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) -Botswana’s Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo said he and Noah Lyles have a friendly relationship, clarifying remarks he made about his American rival being “arrogant” after beating him for gold in the 200 metres at last year’s Paris Games.
Tebogo, who captured Botswana’s first Olympic title, raised eyebrows in his post-race press conference when he said he could not be the face of athletics because he was not “an arrogant or loud person like Noah” who embraces being a showman.
“When you get onto the track, it’s all about business,” Tebogo said in a video call on Wednesday. “(But) when we finish, you can be friends, life goes on.
“But the ‘arrogance’ … he’s good to sell our sport. But with me, I’ll always shy away from doing that because that’s me.”
Tebogo blazed to a time of 19.46 seconds in the Paris 200m final, making him the fifth fastest man in history.
Three-times world 200m champion Lyles had been the favourite, but moments after he crossed the finish line third, the American revealed he had COVID-19.
With Lyles aiming to reassert his dominance over the distance, Tebogo was asked about running with a target on his back this season.
“Everybody who’s there on the lineup, it’s a rival. You cannot eliminate somebody because he didn’t perform well at the 2024 Olympics or 2023 World Championships,” Tebogo said. “It’s a new year, new beginnings, new goals.
“It’s a rivalry on the track, and then off the track, we are human beings at the end of the day.”
GLOBAL AMBASSADOR
Tebogo is encouraging kids to participate in sport and on Wednesday the 21-year-old was named World Athletics’ global ambassador for the federation’s Kids Athletics program.
Growing up in a rough neighbourhood in Botswana, Tebogo said that had it not been for sport he very likely would have wound up a criminal.
“Sport has really helped me a lot, because in the neighbourhood that I was growing up in, there were a lot of criminals, so we thought that was the only way to survive,” Tebogo said.
“But with sport I knew I had to go to school (and then) training and you are tired, you don’t have time to roam the streets. So once I discovered that I pulled in a few friends of mine, and they are now playing football, and we always talk about how, if this didn’t work out, where would we be?”
Kids Athletics was launched in 2002 to inspire children around the world to be more active.
About 1,000 children joined Tebogo, who was named the 2024 World Athlete of the Year for men’s track, at his former primary school in Gaborone to be a part of Wednesday’s announcement.
Being a positive example is a role Tebogo — who initially played football as a left-winger before athletics coaches spotted his obvious speed — wears gladly.
“It’s all about pushing myself to the maximum limits to try and take those kids from those unlawful behaviours and show them they can do something in sport, either basketball, football or whichever sport,” he said.
“So, it’s for them to really see that a criminal life is limited, because you never know when it’s your day … when you’re not dead you can live more years than being a criminal.”
Tebogo is coming off a second-place finish in the 400m at last Saturday’s Maurie Plant Meet in Melbourne, a distance he ran for endurance training.
He will race in the Botswana Continental Tour meet in Gaborone on April 12, his first competitive appearance at home since his Olympic victory.
(Reporting by Lori Ewing; Editing by Ken Ferris)
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