American Sprint Legend On What Letsile Tebogo Should Have Done Differently in 4X400m World Record Bid

American sprint legend Justin Gatlin believes that if Letsile Tebogo had solely focused on the men’s 4x400m relay at the World Athletics Relays in Gaborone, Botswana, then the world record would have been shattered.

The men's 4x400m relay world record stands at 2:54.29, and was set by the United States team (Andrew Valmon, Quincy Watts, Butch Reynolds, and Michael Johnson) on August 22, 1993, in Stuttgart, Germany.

At the World Athletics Relays in Botswana, the quartet of Lee Eppie, Letsile Tebogo, Bayapo Ndoro and Collen Kebinatshipi clocked a championship record time of 2:54.47 to claim top honours, narrowly missing out on the world record.

Team South Africa and Australia finished second and third in respective times of 2:55.07 (a national record) and 2:55.20.

Just before competing in the men’s 4x400m relay final, Letsile Tebogo was fresh from competing in the men’s 4x100m relay heats, where he anchored the team to a national record time of 37.96 seconds.

In the final, Botswana finished a distant sixth in a time of 38.35 seconds, though the reigning Olympic 200m champion did not compete.

However, Justin Gatlin believes that if Letsile Tebogo had not raced in the 4x100m relay race, then Botswana would have had a higher chance of breaking the world record.

“If Tebogo did not have to prepare for the 4x1 and still ran on this relay team, we would have seen probably a world record. And it's that close…2:54.47 to 2:54.29, just like that. So, if that's the case, they are poised to break a world record. They know that,” Justin Gatlin said on the Ready Set Go podcast.

On his part, Letsile Tebogo pointed out that the reason he competed in the men’s 4x100m relay team was that he wanted to guide the youngsters and also help the team to qualify for the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary.