My Paris Olympic predictions: Why Letsile Tebogo already is the next Usain Bolt

There is an inside trend of thought in this business where the important thing is not always about being right or wrong, but simply being the first. This being in the fun and games of Olympic predictions, as in where the medals are going to go, who will be the next big thing, all of that.

Some of which you’ll possibly have heard of here first.

Athletics Weekly are already out on the blocks on this one, listing off their Paris 2024 podium predictions in a 7,400-word online feature last week. Published since 1945, they aren’t short of history or experience on this issue, and their reading of the 48 medal events on the track, field and road come Paris this summer — the athletics programme is on between August 1st to 11th — contains a few distinct firsts.

They’re also predicting Ciara Mageean will finish seventh, one place behind Britain’s Laura Muir

Noting from the outset that “many athletes may suddenly return to the top or make big breakthroughs”, their predictions are largely based on last season, updated after the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow earlier this month.

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The first surprise, perhaps, is that they’re predicting Jakob Ingebrigtsen will win the men’s 1,500m, with that defending his title won in Tokyo, despite the Norwegian runner losing both the 2022 and 2023 World Championships finals to two British runners, Jake Wightman and then Josh Kerr.

The Jakob-Josh rivalry has been building steadily since, if only in a churlish war of words, and there’ll be a nice teaser to that Paris showdown when they clash in the Bowerman Mile at the Prefontaine Classic in Oregon on May 25th.

In the latest race for the title of fastest man on earth, they’re predicting Noah Lyles will repeat his sprint double from the World Championships last summer

Whatever about their prediction Eliud Kipchoge will win a third successive Olympic marathon title (assuming he makes the Kenyan team), there is no surprise whatsoever in their prediction that Faith Kipyegon will win an unprecedented Olympic treble in the women’s 1,500m, given how the Kenyan runner dominated that event last year. They’re also predicting Ciara Mageean will finish seventh, one place behind Britain’s Laura Muir. That may or may not be the first or last Mageean will hear of that prediction, my sense is she won’t be bothered by it either way.

So to the women’s 400m, where reading this time in more hushed tones, they’re predicting Rhasidat Adeleke will make the Olympic podium, finishing third behind Shaunae Miller-Uibo from the Bahamas, chasing a third Olympic gold, and reigning world champion Marileidy Paulino from the Dominican Republic.

This of course would be a first for any Irish women’s sprinter, even making an Olympic sprint final would be. However, it also comes with the prediction Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone from the US, the fastest woman in 2023, plus Femke Bol from the Netherlands, will focus only on the 400m hurdles. What is more certain is that their predicted time for third, 48.92 seconds, will surely be required to make that podium. You didn’t hear that here first.

In the latest race for the title of fastest man on earth, they’re predicting Noah Lyles will repeat his sprint double from the World Championships last summer, and for now at least the US runner may still be the one to beat.

However, if any athlete can upset Lyles, then his name is Letsile Tebogo, the still 20-year-old from Botswana, who already has some people predicting he could be the next Usain Bolt.

From the southern African country of just over 2.3 million people, Tebogo has in his last two races alone suggested Paris may be his chance to light up the Olympics just like Bolt first did in Beijing in 2008, when the Jamaican also broke on to that scene as a 20-your-old.

When Tebogo broke the world record for the 300m last month, running 30.69 also in Pretoria, other people were making predictions

Last Monday in Pretoria, Tebogo moved up to the 400m and clocked 44.29 seconds, improving his previous best of 44.75 and still appearing as if he was out for a jog. His potential there is truly frightening.

When Tebogo broke the world record for the 300m last month, running 30.69 also in Pretoria, other people were making predictions. His time broke Wayde van Niekerk’s previous record of 30.81, which the South African 400m world record holder set in 2017, and was also notably faster than Michael Johnson’s 30.85 (set in 2000) and Bolt’s 30.97 (in 2010).

After seeing Tebogo’s run there, Johnson posted on his X handle: “There’s always talk of who’s the next great one in track. The hype and promise usually fizzle. But Letsile Tebogo is one of the rare ones I might bet on!”

Tebogo is unquestionably one of those rare sprint talents who come along once in a generation. In his first international championship in 2021, he won the 100m title at the World Under-20 Championships in Nairobi, and in April 2022, became the first man from Botswana to break 10 seconds.

Then last year in Budapest, he became the first African sprinter to win a medal in the World Championships 100m, nailing second behind Lyles in 9.88 seconds, before also winning bronze in the 200m.

Which going by my predictions suggests Letsile Tebogo already is the next Usain Bolt. You heard it here first.