Botswana’s Collen Kebinatshipi has set his sights on breaking Wayde van Niekerk’s long-standing 400m world record after storming to gold at last month’s World Athletics Championships in Tokyo.
The 21-year-old clocked an impressive 43.53 seconds, the 10th-fastest time in history, to claim his first world title, becoming the first male athlete from Botswana to achieve the feat.
South Africa’s Van Niekerk set the current world record of 43.03 seconds at the 2016 Rio Olympics, and Kebinatshipi believes it’s only a matter of time before he surpasses it.
“Records are meant to be broken,” Kebinatshipi told Newsday on the BBC World Service. “If I stay focused and injury-free, everything is possible. I was very happy about my performance, running 43.5 at my age is something else.”
Kebinatshipi’s breakthrough came as a pleasant surprise after he narrowly missed qualifying for the final at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“Honestly, my goal in Tokyo was just to reach the final because I missed it at the Olympics,” he said. “That was my motivation. Looking at my age, I didn’t have pressure to compete for a medal. I was planning to start competing for medals at the 2028 Olympics, so things came early.”
Following in the footsteps of Botswana’s Amantle Montsho, who won the women’s 400m title in 2011, Kebinatshipi now stands as one of Africa’s brightest young talents in athletics, with his sights firmly set on rewriting history once again.
