President Mokgweetsi Masisi gave Botswana the afternoon off on Friday 9 August to celebrate Letsile Tebogo, the country’s first gold medallist and the first African to be crowned 200-metre Olympic champion. Masisi hailed the 21-year-old sprinter as “Botswana’s Sensation” after his outstanding performance at the Paris Olympics.

Videos shared on social media showed students at the University of Botswana dancing and singing into the night, while people across the southern African nation posted their pride on X and Facebook.

Botswana’s Olympic team was due to return on Tuesday 13 August with Tebogo’s gold as well as silver in the men’s 4x400m relay, boosting the country’s total Olympic medal tally to four.

The 21-year-old became the first African to win the men’s 200m, in an African record time of 19.46sec, when he powered past Americans Kenny Bednarek and Noah Lyles in Paris on August 8. Masisi had already granted the country of 2.3 million people a half-day holiday on August 9 to celebrate the triumph.

The president will meet the Olympic team at the airport, a government statement said. Tebogo’s achievement will be “etched in the annals of the history of the republic,” the president said. “History made!” Masisi said on his X account. “My voice is completely gone thanks to the phenomenal #LetsileTebogo.”

Masisi also paid tribute to Tebogo’s mother, his greatest fan, who died in May. She had faithfully followed her son around, slipping into Budapest without Tebogo knowing to watch him become the first male Botswanan athlete to win world championship medals last yea

Tebogo is only the second African athlete to win an Olympic medal in the men’s 200m, after Namibian Frankie Fredericks took silver in Atlanta in 1996. Botswana won their first Olympic medal at the 2012 London Games when Nijel Amos took silver in the 800m. Its men’s 4x400m relay team took bronze at Tokyo 2020.

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