By Anderson Emerole
February 26, 2024
Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo, the 20-year-old who won a silver medal in the 100m and a bronze medal in the 200m at last summer’s World Championships, recently broke Wayde van Niekerk’s 300m world record in 30.69 at the Simbine Curro Classic Shoot-Out in Pretoria, South Africa.
The previous record was 30.81 by van Niekerk in Ostrava from 2017.
CITIUS MAG contributor Anderson Emerole broke down the run and the potential implications for the 2024 outdoor season in the 200m and 100m potentially. Comments transcribed from the video have been edited lightly for clarity.
What does this mean for Tebogo in the 200m?
He ran 19.50s at the London Diamond League – coming just five months after a 31.52 showing at altitude in Pretoria, South Africa (while slowing down across the finish line). You could assume he could get down to 19.4 or 19.3 – but it’s hard to tell because some of the best 300m runners in history have not been the top 200m guys. Usain Bolt and Michael Johnson are the standouts who dominated the 200m and ran strong 300m times. We haven’t seen it from the likes of Noah Lyles, Erriyon Knighton, Andre De Grasse or Kenny Bednarek. These top guys haven’t dipped their toes into the 300m, so it’s a bit hard to extrapolate what a 30.69 means for the 200m. We know he’s going to give competition to Noah Lyles, who is the Olympic gold medal favorite in the 200m.
The difference between 100/200m sprinters and 200/400m sprinters
If we take a look at the top 10 all-time 300m list, Wayde Van Niekerk (30.81, No. 2 all-time); Michael Johnson (30.85, No. 3 all-time); LaShawn Merritt (31.23, No. 5 all-time); Isaac Makwala (31.44, No. 6 all-time); Danny Everett (31.48, No. 7 all-time); Roberto Hernandez (31.48; No. 7 all-time) and Steven Gardiner (31.52; No. 9 all-time) are all mostly considered 400m runners instead of 100m/200m specialists. You have Usain Bolt but he’s a once-in-a-generation talent. It’s hard to compare any athlete to Usain Bolt. Usain Bolt also ran his 300m personal best in 2010, which came after his dominance and world records in 2008 and 2009. It’s not fair to compare Tebogo to that when he’s still rising and developing at just 20 years old.
What does this mean for Tebogo in the 100m?
Tebogo’s 100m personal best is 9.88 from his silver medal finish at the World Championships. Let’s assume that his fitness indicates that he could go faster. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Tebogo go 9.80 or a little faster.
What does this mean for Tebogo in the 400m?
Last year, he ran 44.7 for 400m. That was also a few months after his 300m run outdoors. Is he going to run the 400m? Who knows? If he chose to do one in April or May, I could see him running 44-low. A lot of athletes don’t translate from one performance directly to another.
Managing Expectations
I’ve wanted to say that Tebogo is a contender for double gold in the 100m and 200m at the Paris Olympics. I’ve said that 2023 Tebogo can be compared to 2007 Usain Bolt in the sense that they both dominated going into the following year. I don’t want to jump on the hype train just yet. What if Tebogo runs 9.80 and also 19.40. That would’ve been a great indicator of improvement. In our minds, if we’re looking for a 19.2 and 9.6, that’s going to shoot our expectations when we’ll still likely see some fast times from the kid.
The Current Depth of The 200m Dash
Since Usain Bolt finished running the 200m, we’ve seen this huge level-up in the event. Andre De Grasse was the kickstarter for that. We could even extend it back to 2015 when De Grasse got a bronze medal in the 100m at the World Championships. With the surge of Noah Lyles, we’ve seen a bunch of guys running 19.6s and 19.7s consistently with Lyles, Bednarek, Knighton and DeGrasse. They’re pushing the pace. Nowadays, you can’t run 19.6 and 19.7 and expect to be a gold medalist. You’re going to have to run 19.5 or 19.4 as things continue to progress.
Tebogo realizes all of that – especially after he got the bronze medal in the 200m and the silver medal in the 100m. He’s seen Noah Lyles run 19.3 and Erriyon Knighton go 19.4. So he knows he needs to progress beyond that 19.5 and the 300m was just a stepping stone toward that goal. There is an advantage that Tebogo has in being a stronger 400m runner than Lyles and Knighton. Tebogo has run 44.7. Knighton and Lyles aren’t close to that.
Does this mean he’s going to beat Lyles, Bednarek, De Grasse or Knighton come outdoors? I don’t know. The potential is there.
Anderson Emerole
Anderson Emerole is an analyst and contributor to CITIUS MAG. He runs The Final Leg, a YouTube channel with up-to-date commentary on track and field news.
