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Letsile Tebogo was received at the Vatican by Pope Francis with prayers for his late mother and received the Holy Father's signature on his Paris Olympics-winning spikes.
Olympic 200m champion Letsile Tebogo is in Rome ahead of the Golden Gala Diamond League meet on Friday and his first point of call was to visit Pope Francis at the Vatican for prayers and blessings.
The Botswana speed king who will be racing in the 100m against a stacked field on Friday, August 30, asked the Pope for a prayer for his mother, Elizabeth Seratiwa, who passed away last May 18 (she was 43 years old).
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Tebogo also presented his spikes worn for his historic feat at the Paris Olympics, which are engraved with the initials of his mother's name and her birthdate (December 23, 1980).
“Seeing me win the Olympic gold maybe many people will have gone to look on the maps where Botswana is and reading on my shoes the initials of my name, and her date of birth, I hope that someone will have prayed for her,” said Tebogo according to rome.diamondleague.com.
"I am sure that my mother is happy, she was a woman of faith. When she died, from breast cancer after a long battle, I thought about quitting sports.
"Now I have won the Games for and with mom. For my sister, who is 12 years old, and for me she was and is everything! It gave us the opportunity to grow despite the context where we were born: Kanye’s village that no one knows where it is.
"Always together, thanks to sport, we have seen cities that we didn’t even think existed. I was a hyperactive child, without hope: sport and my mother’s infinite love allowed me to realize myself in life, up to the Olympic gold. But all children in Africa should have these opportunities."
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