Botswana moves second behind USA rankings
In the wee hours of Sunday morning, Batswana braved the early winter cold to stay up and witness a historic win by the 4x400m men’s relay team.
The team bagged a historic gold medal at the 2024 IAAF World Athletics Relays held in Nassau, The Bahamas, on Saturday and Sunday. This was the third medal for the team in as many appearances in the competition.
However, Sunday’s triumph was the best performance since their first participation in 2017. The team became the first African nation to win a medal in the men’s sprint event at the World Athletics Relays.
The quartet of Collen Kebinatshipi, 20, Letsile Tebogo, 20, Leungo Scotch, 28, and Bayapo Ndori, 24, was crowned champions as they clocked a time of 2:59.11. This is the third-best time in the history of the competition and
Botswana climbed to the second spot behind the United States of America (USA). The three-time World Relays’ champions, USA, recorded the fastest finish in the inaugural edition in 2014. The 2014 USA team clocked 2:57.25 and remains untouched almost a decade later. In 2015, the USA defended their title with the second-best time in history as they ran 2:58.43.
Trinidad and Tobago, who stopped the US’ dominance in 2017, have the fourth best time with 3:00.81, while 2021 champions, the Netherlands, are the slowest winners with 3:03.45. In The Bahamas, the boys in the blue, black and white put on a dominant display. Each of the four athletes showed brilliant displays, but Tebogo’s 43.72 split in the second leg was the fastest for the 2024 edition and amongst the leads in the event’s history. Ndori, on the anchor leg, was the second fastest man this year and Botswana recorded the biggest margin win as South Africa and Belgium came in second and third places, respectively.
With an average of 23 years, the local quartet became one of the youngest teams to win gold. It was a near-miss in the team’s debut in 2017, as the veteran, LeShawn Merritt held off Karabo Sibanda by just 0.15 seconds as USA bagged the win. Sibanda, 18, Isaac Makwala, 31, Babaloki Thebe, 20, and Onkabetse Nkobolo, 23, settled for the silver. Botswana dropped to third in Chorzow, Poland in 2021.
The quartet of Makwala, 35, Boitumelo Masilo, 26, Ditiro Nzamani, 21, and Leungo Scotch, 25, then clocked 3:04.77. This was the oldest team to represent the nation in the race with an average of age 26.7 while the 2017 average age stood at just over 23.