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Botswana gave a rapturous welcome to Letsile Tebogo on Tuesday as the sprinter returned home with the southern African country’s first-ever Olympic gold medal. Families with children, elderly people and young supporters waved Botswana’s sky blue and black national flag as the Olympic team landed back in the capital Gaborone. Hundreds of supporters had gathered at the small airport, benefiting from an impromptu half-day holiday declared by President Mokgweetsi Masisi to celebrate Tebogo’s success. Before greeting the athletes, Masisi danced on the tarmac as an aid held an umbrella to shelter him from the sun. Tebogo, 21, 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. His gold as well as silver in the men’s 4x400m relay, boosted the country’s total Olympic medal tally to four. Outside the airport, traditional dancers wearing animal skins and beads kicked off a welcoming ceremony that was to later continue at the national stadium. Masisi had already granted the country of 2.3 million people half a day off to party on August 9. 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. Botswana’s success at the Paris Olympics helped to raise Africa’s medal haul to 39, two more than at the Tokyo Games, with Kenya scooping 11 in the French capital. Half of the line-up at the men’s 200m where Tebogo excelled were athletes from Africa, with the continent rising as a contender in shorter events beyond its dominance at longer distances. Source: AFP

Rena Wakama, the Head coach of Nigeria’s senior women’s basketball team, D’Tigress, has been named the Best Female Basketball Coach at the Paris 2024 Olympics tournament. “Best coach of #Paris2024 Women’s Basketball, Rene Wakama, Nigeria,” a tweet on the X handle of the International Basketball Federation read on Sunday evening. Wakama, 32, guided the female basketball team to their first-ever quarterfinals of the Olympic games when they beat Canada 79-70. However, their journey at the Olympics was cut short when they lost to the eventual winners — United States, by 88-74 in the quarterfinals of the women’s basketball event. Despite this, the team made an impressive record of being the only African basketball team (men and women) to progress to the last 16 at the event. Wakama is the first Nigerian National Female Basketball Team coach to win the women’s Afrobasket title since it began in 1966. D’Tigress defeated Senegal 84-74 in the final and secured Nigeria’s place as only the second country to win the title four times in a row. Source: punchng.com