Letsile Tebogo’s coach, Kebonyemodisa “Dose” Mosimanyane, speaks like a man resigned to the propensity of his wing-footed charge bolting like greased lightning to win races even if both of them may not be aiming for it: “It was the first race with spikes on for Letsile this season”
GAZETTE REPORTER
Running a World Record (WR) time of 30.69s at the Simbine Curro Classic Shoot-Out in Pretoria, South Africa last Saturday is not something that Letsile Tebogo and his coach trained for, Tebogo’s personal coach, Kebonyemodisa “Dose” Mosimanyane has said.
With that performance, the Kanye-born athlete took more than a 10th of a second off the previous World Best of 30.81 set by South Africa’s Wayde van Niekerk in Ostrava, Czech Republic on 28 June 2017.
Prior to that, the World Best stood to Michael Johnson of the United States with the 30.85s that he clocked in 2000, also in Pretoria. The fourth athlete to have dipped under 31 seconds for the discipline is Usain Bolt with the 30.97s that he ran in 2010.
Very cautious
“The WR is not something that we trained for,” said Mosimanyane in a telephone interview with Gazette Sports.
“We are coming from injury and are very cautious. Even training for the Olympics and this season at large, starting from general preparations from last year, we were very cautious because we were training to return to competition.
“It had to be gradual so that it doesn’t recur the injury because a hamstring injury is very difficult to deal with. sometimes it gets to the athlete’s mind and may disturb them to run even if they are healed.”
Running takkies
Mosimanyane said they were very cautious in making sure that their return from injury “is very gradual” to prevent stops and starts.
“That was the approach to this year’s training, and we knew that at some point, we would have to start doing races, competing with spikes,” he explained.
“I must note that for his first race of the year, which was in Francistown last month, he was using running takkies. So we chose this race for trying spikes. It was the first race with spikes on for Letsile this season.
Physically and mentally
“So when we went to Pretoria, we wanted to check if he has fully recovered from his injury, both physically and mentally. So we didn’t train with a World Record in mind.”
Mosimanyane disclosed that they had it in mind last season immediately after Tebogo ran 31.52s last season in the 300m. “We knew that we would get the World Record and thought we would get it this year,” he said.
“But after the injury that he got late last year, we changed to let let this season pass because it’s for Olympics. So let us not risk injuries in it.”
Penchant
Tebogo has a penchant for making history, as evidenced by his remarkable achievements. He first made waves by setting a world U20 100m record of 9.94s at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon in 2022.
Shortly thereafter, he solidified his status by improving upon this record, clocking in at 9.91s to defend his own world U20 title in Cali the following month.
Not content with just U20 success, Tebogo went on to elevate his national 100m record to 9.88s, a feat that he accomplished while securing a silver medal at last year’s World Championships in Budapest.
Additionally, his prowess extends to the 200m where his stellar time of 19.50s, achieved in London last year, stands as the African record. In Budapest, he not only clinched silver in the 100m but also secured bronze in the 200m with an impressive time of 19.81s.