25 Apr 2023

The 200 metres men event will be among the must-see races at the FNB Botswana Golden Grand Prix on Saturday.

Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo will face Canadian and Olympic champion, Andre De Grasse, 2020, Olympic silver medalist Jerome Blake as well as two-time Olympic medalists in the 4x100 relay; Brendon Rodney and Aron Brown.

The start list also has Olympic finalist, Joseph Fahnbulleh and Alex Ogando, who was part of a relay team that won a silver medal for the  4x400 relay at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Botswana’s Anthony Pesela, who was part of the 4x400 relay team that won bronze at the Tokyo Olympics, will complete the start list.

Tebogo’s coach, Kebonyemodisa Mosimanyane, said the sprinter, who had been training in Maun, was focused with no pressure.

He said they took r athletes to Maun to take them out of the public eye to help reduce immense pressure on them.

The coach said they would use the weekend event to prepare for the World Championships.

“Our last race was at the Miramar Invitational, World Athletics Continental Tour in Florida, USA. It had a lot of pressure than the Saturday’s meet,” he said, adding that Tebogo and renowned American sprinter, Christian Coleman, were separated by 0.003 in the men’s 200 metres.

The two athletes clocked the same time of 20.00, but Coleman beat Tebogo on the line with his torso.  

The coach said now there was a lot of expectation from Batswana, adding the nation was hoping that Tebogo would pull a plug against the world’s greatest.

Mosimanyane said they were not under pressure to shatter records.

All eyes would be on Tebogo because of how he performed in the last edition in the 100 metres, where he recorded a world junior record although it was not ratified by the World Athletics due to some technical irregularities.

“We are aware of that pressure, but we are not going to allow it to ruin our plan. There is pressure from people and there is a plan from us as to how we are going to approach our races this season, therefore our plan will have to prevail, our main focus is World Champs,” he said.

The coach said their wish was for the athlete to finish the race healthy, and keep the momentum going into the next race. ENDS