17 Apr 2024

Botswana sprint sensation, Letsile Tebogo is among Botswana athletes who will feature at the 5th  Kip Keino Classic Continental Tour to be held at the Nyayo National Stadium, Kenya on Saturday.

Tebogo will compete in the 200m race and in the line up will be US’ Lindsey Courtney, who currently holding a leading time of 19.88. Also in the race will be Courtney’s countrymen, Camel Corian and Micah Harris as well as Claude Emmanuel of Cameroon, Samuel Waweru of Kenya and Fausto Desalu of Italy.

Even before the firing of the starter gun, Tebogo’s participation has created a hype and athletics coach, Dose Mosimanyane said in an interview that he was aware of such a hysteria.

He said since the start of the season, Tebogo had been on a steady improvement trail dropping some good times.

“As it stands, I think he is in a good position to absorb pressure and nothing can derail him,” he said.

Mosimanyane further said the Kip Keino tour would form part of the preparations for the Paris Olympics.

He was hopeful that the athletes would record impressive times at the meet adding that they did not want athletes to have a burnout before the main event, which is the Olympics.

Already, some of the athletes have a busy schedule as some had featured in the African Games and South Africa’s Grand Prix meet.

He said the likes of Tebogo and Tumo Van Wyk recorded the fastest times in those races.

“Van Wyk ran a Personal Best in both 200 and 400 metres, therefore the Kip Keino Classic Continental Tour came at a time when all the athletes that I coached are from a mini peak, which needs re-set, they had to rest” he said.

He said following the Grand Prix, some athletes were subjected to a week of rest.

He said the Lefika Relays were a sort of base training for the second mini peak that they were working on.Meanwhile, in other races, Botswana will be represented in 400m by Bayapo Ndori, Leungo Scotch and Tumo Van Wyk.

In the 400m women, the provisional list has Obakeng Kambueruka and Galefele Moroko, while the 800m women has Oratile Nowe who will compete against the trio of World Champion Marry Moraa, Vivian Chebet and Naomi Korir from Kenya.

Other local athletes, Tumo Nkape and Ketlhobogile Haingura will run the 800m where they will battle it out with among others Kenya’s Emmanuel Wanyoni, Ferguson Rotich, Aron Kemei, Collins Kipruto, Abel Kipsang, and Timothy Cheruiyot, Tom Dradriga Uganda and Algerians Yassine Hethat and Khaled Benmadhi.ENDS