Botswana (a landlocked southern African nation of 2.5 million people) has rapidly ascended to the top of men's sprinting, culminating in a triumphant home victory at the World Athletics Relays in the capital Gaborone, where the national team won the men's 4x400m relay to a rapturous crowd. The country's rise — marked by Letsile Tebogo's 200m gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics and Collen Kebinatshipi's 400m world title in Tokyo — is largely credited to decades of school-based talent programmes and nationally run centres of sports excellence. However, officials have warned that a school sports scheme suspended in 2019 threatens to dry up the athlete pipeline, even as figures like retired sprint star Isaac Makwala work to fill the gap through private academies training the next generation.