Gaborone has a population of fewer than 300,000 people but the Botswana capital staged a hugely successful World Relays at the weekend.
The stands were full and the performances huge.
Think about this: the Botswana men’s 4x400m team that won world championship gold in Tokyo last year — which featured individual stars world 400m champion Collen Kebinatshipi and Olympic 200m champion Letsile Tebogo — helped to draw the crowds.
And their 2min 54.47sec winning time went down as the third-fastest of all time, behind two American performances.
South Africa took the silver in 2:55.07, the fifth-quickest of all time. Third-placed Australia’s 2:55.20 was sixth.
The US, the reigning Olympic champions, decided not to send a team because their top eight athletes weren’t yet race fit. Or maybe they were taking a leaf from their president’s Taco policy — Trump Always Chickens Out?
The Americans did enter a second-string team in the men’s 4x100m and they won — their 37.43sec ranking the 17th-fastest of all time.
South Africa, missing two sprinters, ended second in a 37.49 African record, the 24th-fastest of all time.
Had Mvuyo Moss had a better reaction time out the blocks, South Africa might have won, by the way.
The US won the mixed 4x400m in 3:07.47, the third-best time in history (they set the 3:07.41 world record at the Paris Olympics) and Jamaica set the 39.62 world record in the mixed 4x100m.
The latter is a new event in which nine of the world’s top 10 times were all posted in Gaborone, the sole exception being Canada’s 40.30 from the 2025 World Relays.
The two women’s relays were not as impressive. Norway won the women’s 4x400m, which sits at 85th overall and Jamaica’s 42.00 in the women’s 4x100m was well outside the top 100.
But there are a few take-aways here.
One is that Africa — particularly the sub-Saharan part — deserves to host more athletics events.
Pundits will point out that it’s difficult to find dates on the international calendar, but with warm autumn days a regular feature in Southern Africa, there’s no reason Botswana and South Africa couldn’t stage day-time events in late May.
By then the season is in full swing.
The Simbine Classic and the Golden Grand Prix in Gaborone the previous weekend were great, but pushing them back by six weeks or so could help to attract stronger fields.
Another key take-away reinforces the belief that South Africa needs to focus efforts on relays.
So far this decade — across two Olympics and three world championships — the nation has won a total of three track-and-field medals, two of them in relays.
There was the Olympic silver in the men’s 4x100m at Paris 2024 and the men’s 4x400m bronze at the world championships in Tokyo last year.
The sole exception was Jo-Ane du Plessis’s Olympic silver in the women’s javelin.
The mixed 4x400m also has potential, meaning South Africa could be fighting for three relay medals on the track at Los Angeles 2028.
Relays must be prioritised.
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