LETSILE Tebogo of Botswana has set a new world record in the men’s 300m, the youngster clocking 30.69 seconds at the Simbine Curro Classic Shoot-Out in Pretoria, South Africa today.
The 20-year-old took more than a tenth of a second off the previous world record of 30.81s set by South Africa’s Wayde van Niekerk in Ostrava, Czech Republic, on June 28, 2017.
Prior to that Van Niekerk time, the previous record was Michael Johnson’s 30.85s set in 2000, also in Pretoria.
The fourth athlete to have dipped under 31 seconds for the discipline is the legendary Usain Bolt with the 30.97s he ran in 2010.
Tebogo dominated the race on Saturday, blasting from the blocks to take a clear lead by the bend, the double world medallist winning by more than a second ahead of Gardeo Isaacs (31.91s), while Bayapo Ndori was third in 31.95s.
Tebogo is no stranger to making history, having set a world U-20 100m record of 9.94s at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon in 2022 and then improved that mark to 9.91s to retain his world U-20 title in Cali the following month.
He has since improved his national 100m record to 9.88s, achieved when securing silver at last year’s World Championships in Budapest, Hungary.
Tebogo also holds the 200m African record of 19.50s, which set in London last year, and he won 200m world bronze in Budapest with 19.81s.
