Botswana will take a day off next Monday to celebrate a golden moment in its sporting history after the men’s 4x400m relay squad stunned the world at the Tokyo 2025 World Championships.
President Duma Boko, speaking from New York, where he is attending the UN General Assembly, announced that September 29, just a day before the country’s independence celebrations, will be a public holiday dedicated to the victorious athletes.
“This is a historic African win,” Boko said, praising the quartet of Lee Eppie, Letsile Tebogo, Bayapo Ndori, and Busang Collen Kebinatshipi for delivering Africa’s first-ever world title in the 4x400m relay. “Botswana’s natural diamonds are not just in the ground; they are our World Champion athletes.”
The Botswana team clocked an impressive 2:57:76 to defeat favourites Team USA, cementing their place in history as only the second African nation to win a relay gold at the World Championships, the first being South Africa’s 4x100m squad in 2001.
Kebinatshipi was the standout star of the meet, anchoring the relay to gold and also pulling off a stunning upset to claim the men’s 400m world title. His teammate Ndori added to the tally with a bronze medal in the same event, bringing Botswana’s medal haul to two golds and one bronze, good enough for fifth place on the overall medal table behind the United States, Kenya, the Netherlands, and Canada.
President Boko described the country’s showing in Tokyo as “electric” and a sign of Botswana’s growing global stature. The celebrations are expected to continue well into the independence festivities, as the nation honours its new generation of athletics heroes and builds momentum for future competitions.
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