Letsile Tebogo and Other Young African Sprinters Who Turned Down the ‘American Dream’

Botswana sprinting sensation Letsile Tebogo recently made a shocking revelation that he had rejected bi-money approaches from three countries to switch nationalities.

Tebogo revealed that Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar had approached him with a view to enticing him to ditch Botswana and run for them in exchange for a bumper reward.

The 22-year-old flatly refused, joining a small list of African athletes who turn down such overtures as many from the continent have opted to take up the offers to set themselves and their families up for life.

But even before the three countries came to the picture, Tebogo had received offers to move to the United States, not as a citizen, but to train there and who knows what would have happened after!

However, he rejected this as well in favour of training in Botswana under his long-time coach Kebonyemodisa “Dose” Mosimanyane.

Tebogo is among a few African sprinters who have turned down a chance to train and study in America over the last one year but who are the others?

Tebogo revealed in September 2024 that he had been approached to move to an American training camp and fine tune his skills but he refused and with some very good reasons.

“It’s a tough question to answer but in the United States there is a lot of competition, so once you take one gem from Africa and you put it there, it is going to be destroyed,” Tebogo told World Athletics soon after winning Olympics gold in 200m.

“In the US, there is already a new Michael Johnson coming up, Quincy Wilson. There is always somebody coming up for them. But for Africa it is rare to see somebody like me.

“So for me to decide not to go there but to sit down and start from way back in 2016 to just watch how African athletes progressed going to America – I found out that a lot of African athletes make it out of college but they can’t go professional afterwards,” he added.

Meanwhile, early this year, South African teen sensation Bayanda Walaza rejected full scholarship offers from three universities in the United States.

The 19-year-old insisted he wanted to stay with his South African coach Thabo Matebedi, who worked with him since he was 15, and helped him win two World Athletics Under-20 Championships gold medals and an Olympic silver medal.

“Usain Bolt stayed with his coach until he retired—why can’t I do the same? I could coach Bayanda all the way to his retirement,” Matebedi told SABC in January.

“Over the past seven years, I’ve seen the value of building close connections with my athletes. We’ve learned how to communicate effectively, and I’ve developed a fatherly role with them. We share a great relationship, full of laughter and fun.”

South African sprinter Udeme Okon, the World U20 400m champion, is another youngster who rejected overtures from America to secure a scholarship in the ‘land of milk and honey.’

The 19-year-old, who was completing his matric at Florida High School in Roodepoort, at the time, committed to studying at the University of Johannesburg next year.

Okon is seen as the next big thing in 400m after Wayde van Niekerk and Zakhithi Nene, and has been attracting interest from the US but insisted he has no desire to switch.

"I have never made that decision of going to the USA, I've gotten the opportunities but I'm not looking into going to universities in the US. I don't think I can leave someone like my coach, someone that took me up from grassroots, putting me where I am now. Going to the US is not in my books, I can say," Okon told SABC in May.