At the World Athletics Awards in Monaco, Olympic winners Letsile Tebogo and Sifan Hassan were honoured as the best male and female athlete of this year.
Tebogo also won the 200-metre race in Paris with an African record time of 19.46 seconds, making him Botswana’s first Olympic champion. He also helped set a new African record, winning silver in the men’s 4x400m relay.
Besides winning the Best Male Athlete award, he was recognized as the Male Track Athlete of the Year as well. American Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who broke her own world record by winning gold in the 400m hurdles in Paris, won the award for the Female Track Athlete of the Year.
About his achievement, Tebogo said: “It feels amazing to know that the fans are always there for us athletes… It was a great year. This means a lot.”
The Best Female Athlete of the Year, Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands, became the first athlete in 72 years to win medals in all three events at the same Olympic Games after winning gold in the women’s marathon and bronze in the 5,000 and 10,000 metres in Paris.
Hassan declared: “I never thought I was going to win this one… This year was crazy.”
Hassan also won the award for the Female Out-of-Stadium athlete of the year. Tamirat Tola of Ethiopia, the gold winner of the men’s marathon in Paris, took home the corresponding award for men.
The award for the Male Field Athlete of the Year went to Sweden’s Mondo Duplantis, who broke his own world record while winning gold in the pole vault. Yaroslava Mahuchikh, a Ukrainian high jump champion, won the award for the Female Field Athlete of the Year.
Track star Letsile Tebogo, 20, has become an unstoppable force in the 2024 season after putting on amazing feats that have left people with their jaws wide open. NBC Sports’ Director of Social Media, Travis Miller, received a ton of responses from fans, including Noah Lyles, asking about their favorite Letsile Tebogo moments to share.
Tebogo’s story has enthralled spectators across the globe with his blazing sprints and breathtaking finishes, establishing him as a rising celebrity in the sports world.
Tebogo of Botswana kicked off his 2024 campaign with a bang, winning the 300-meter dash in 30.69 seconds at the Curro Podium Final in Pretoria. He was unstoppable on the track and won gold again at the Athletics Grand Prix 2, clocking a lightning-fast 44.29 seconds for the 400 meters.
However, it was his astounding 19.94-second 200-meter sprint at the ASA Athletics Grand Prix 3 that took the world by surprise, catapulting him to the top of the world rankings and bringing him ever-closer to Usain Bolt’s legendary 19.19-second record. Tebogo’s season-long 20-second leap not only establishes a new benchmark, but it also solidifies his reputation as a genuine athletic marvel.
Letsile Tebogo vs Noah Lyles
As competitors across the globe get ready for what promises to be an incredible track and field year, with the Olympics in Paris taking center stage. Among the competitors, Letsile Tebogo and American phenom Noah Lyles are stirring up excitement as they aim for Olympic gold.
They have demonstrated unrelenting tenacity with every step they have taken this season, keeping fans on the edge of their seats as they await their pursuit of success on the biggest stage of them all. As these competitors are ready to shine and motivate on the track in Paris, prepare to see history being made.
Letsile Tebogo is very well-known on the track and field scene. The one thing he loved, though, was having Seratiwa, his mother, support him from the stands. Unfortunately, on May 19, his mother passed away following a brief illness. The Olympian, outwardly calm, is torn up inside by his painful loss.
Letsile was not with her mother when she took her last breath. He was in Italy preparing for the Eugene Diamond League. He got the news on the internet, making it more difficult for him to process and accept.
He says in a note: “I’ve been trying to find myself again, but it’s hard. It’s hard because you were a huge part of my life.” His mother was a former athlete and they shared their passion towards sports. “Not having you here is so painful. I’m just not me anymore,” he added.
However, the sprinter managed to pay tribute to his mother in another way. On August 8, in the middle of a packed field for the 200-metre finals, his focus was on getting the Olympic gold. He became the Olympic champion with his time of 19.46 seconds. He took off his shoe and held it up to the camera following his historic victory. In a touching remembrance of the most significant woman in his life, the shoe displayed his mother’s birthdate, 23-12-1980.
The athlete declared: “I believe she could be one of the happiest people on the planet because she believed in me, and I had so much doubt for myself.”
Two-time Olympic gold medallist Faith Kipyegon is considered one of the greatest 1,500 metres athletes the world has ever seen. The Kenyan won the 1,500 metres gold in both Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and Tokyo in 2021. If she triumphs again in Paris, she will be the first athlete to win the Olympic event three times in a row.
Kipyegon had an incredible season in 2023. She broke world records in three events in under 50 days.
The 30-year-old broke the women’s 1,500 metres world record at the Diamond League meeting in Florence, Italy, at 3:49.11. Less than a week later, she shattered the 5,000 metres world record at the Diamond League event in Paris, France, with a time of 14:05.20. (That record was subsequently broken by the Ethiopian Gudaf Tsegay with a time of 14:00.21.)
Next, Kipyegon shattered the one-mile world record with a time of 4:07.64 at the Diamond League meet in Monaco.
Later in the season, at the 2023 World Athletics Championships held in Budapest, Hungary, Kipyegon won the 1,500 metres and the 5,000 metres—the first woman to do so at the global spectacle. In recognition of her remarkable feats, World Athletics crowned her the World Athlete of the Year for 2023.
Kipyegon has found her way to the top with her talent, work ethic, and positive and humble attitude. The nurturing environment she trained in has also helped.
Born in 1994 on a Kenyan farm in the Rift Valley, she walked and jogged many miles to and from school.
Her physical education teacher identified her potential. By the time she was 16, she had already placed 4th in the World Cross Country Championships.
She had the benefit of training in Kenya’s high-altitude athletics camps. Running at high altitudes means there is less oxygen, and athletes tire more easily. The camps have become renowned for pushing athletes like Kipyegon to the limits of their endurance. The coaches also play a vital role in their success. Retired elite athlete Patrick Sang, for example, has trained multiple Olympic champions, including Kipyegon and Eliud Kipchoge.
Many of the athletes come from poor rural families and run to escape poverty. Kipyegon has gone from running barefoot in her first races to the height of success.
In the run-up to this year’s Bank of America Chicago Marathon 2023, expectations were sky-high for the defending champion, Kenya’s Ruth Chepngetich. The 29-year-old marathon runner had won the esteemed competition for two consecutive years, with an impressive time of 2:22:31 in the 2021 edition and 2:14:18 in the 2022 edition. During that time, Chepngetich also made rounds online, as she was just 14 seconds away from surpassing the previous world record set by Brigid Kosgei, a fellow Kenyan, with a time of 2.14:04.
This year, she headed into the marathon heavily favored to win the gold but struggled to compete with a strong rival, Sifan Hassan, who overtook her at the 17th mile of the race to deny what would have been her third Chicago marathon title.
Sifan Hassan’s latest endeavors
Hassan entered the marathon scene rather late compared to most of her competitors. Despite being new to running the dreaded 26.2-mile marathon, Hassan’s abilities proved to be more than sufficient, as she outpaced every other runner in the TCS London Marathon last April and ran a Dutch national record of 2:18:33, claiming the gold medal for her first marathon.
And this time proved to be no different than her last marathon, as she was able to shake off her rivals as she ran to victory in a record-breaking time of 2:13:44, the second fastest marathon time in history, behind only Tigist Assefa’s Berlin record of 2:11:53.
Hassan vs. Chepngetich
Chepngetich began the race with a commanding lead, reaching the 10-kilometer mark in a time of 31:05. At the same time, Hassan followed in close pursuit of the Kenyan reigning champion, gradually closing in on the lead until the 15-kilometer mark.
It took nearly an hour for the two runners to share the lead in the marathon race. However, at the 17th mile, Sifat made a decisive move to overtake Chepngetich and remain in the lead for the rest of the race. By the 30th kilometer, Hassan had increased her lead to 10 seconds, securing her position as the leader.
Near the end of the race, Sifat Hassan ran to the might of her abilities and, for the second time around, broke off the tape at the end of the finish line with a time of 2:13:44.
Chepngetich settled in for second place with a time of 02:15:37, while Ethiopia’s Megertu Alemu came in third with a time of 02:17:09.
“I just love the pain, and the time was like you hate yourself, but the way you finish, you want to do it again. It is so amazing. I don’t know, I loved it. It is my second marathon and I win, and that’s unbelievable. I can’t describe how I feel,” Sifat Hassan said in an interview with NBC Chicago.
Who is Hassan—the woman who stunned the defending champion?
Sifat Hassan is an Ethiopian-born Dutch track and field athlete.
She has, for her entire career, specialized in middle- and long-distance running, and she’s received many accolades over the years, placing within the top three and climbing the podium in most of the competitions she’s joined. But, perhaps, her most notable achievement came in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, where she won two gold medals in the 5,000m and 10,000m medals and a bronze medal in the 1500m. Most recently, she also competed in the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, where she was able to medal a silver in the 5000m and a bronze in the 1500m.
Keely Hodgkinson, the Olympic 800-metre gold medallist, was voted the BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2024.
In the recent season, the 22-year-old athlete finished her quest for a world championship by winning gold at the Paris Olympics. Three years earlier, she came second in her Olympic debut in Tokyo. She also won back-to-back silvers at the World Championships.
Moreover, Hodgkinson set a new British record of one minute 54.61 seconds at the London Diamond League, which made her the sixth-fastest woman in sporting history. She also maintained her European 800m title in Rome.
Named the BBC Sports Personality of the Year, the athlete declared: “I am in a bit of shock… I am more excited for my coach as I wouldn’t be here without his guidance.”
She added: “This year has been incredible and I achieved everything I set out to do on the outdoor track. I hope you loved watching Paris.”
Following Emma Raducanu (2021), Beth Mead (2022), and Mary Earps (2023), Hodgkinson is the fourth consecutive female recipient of this award.
In a social media post, Hodgkinson said: “What a great way to end the year. Thank you to everyone who voted!!”
