The Olympic euphoria that was brought about by the impressive performance of Team Botswana at the 2024 Paris Games has come and gone.
What’s left are vivid memories of the nights and days that Botswana flexed her sporting muscle to the world.
The heroics of sprinter Letsile Tebogo, and the 4x400m relay team against power houses such as the United States of America and Jamaica has thrust the little landlocked nation from Southern Africa into the eye of the world.
From this team of winners, that bagged the country an Olympic Gold and Silver medal, there was an unfamiliar face.
Lee Eppie forced his way into the men’s 4x400m relay team to become part of Botswana’s sporting history.
Although he was a reserve, the 25-year Palapye native is no slouch.
For the past five years, Eppie has bee honing his skills at Mississippi State University in the United States of America where he’s pursuing his studies.
Before heading out to the USA in 2019, Eppie was a regular at Botswana Athletics Association (BAA) events under youth and junior categories.
In an exclusive interview with Voice Sport Eppie said he was inspired by his fatheer who was also passionate about athletics.
“In 2012 I started competing at Primary school, and continued at both junior and later senior school under the tutelage of Johnson Kubisa,” he told Voice Sport.
The 25 year old broke into the senior national team this year in June during the Africa Senior Athletics Championships in Cameroon Douala.
With the seasoned Busang Kebinatshipi, Bayapo Ndori and Leungo Scotch sitting out the 400m, Eppie together with Anthony Pesela was entrusted with representing Botswana in the quarter mile event with Eppie going on to clock a personal best of 45.39 seconds to win a silver medal.
“Representing the country is a big deal for me because it opened doors for me to make the Paris Olympic team. Getting silver and gold was great, my name and family will forever be in the history books,” he said, adding that he was shocked to have achieved that in such a short space of time.
He went on to be part of the relay team that won a gold medal at the Africa Senior Athletics championships clocking a time of 03:02.23.
That was enough to earn him a plane ticket to Paris within the men’s 4x400m relay team that included Ndori, Kebinatshipi, Scotch, Pesela and Boitumelo Masilo.
Despite sitting out of the relay team at the Olympics, being part of the reserves as Botswana made history clocking a time of 02:54.53 to win silver behind USA, Eppie is still proud of the historic moment.
“Being part of this relay team is huge for me personally because we made history. The reception I had from the guys was good honestly, it was the first time linking up with some of them and we got along quickly. Making the Olympic team was the biggest achievement of my career because not everyone gets to compete at that level,” added Eppie.
Post the Olympics, Eppie together with his teammates were received to a hero’s welcome in Gaborone and showered with financial rewards from Choppies, Orange Botswana, and Debswana, Botswana Defense Force and from the government itself.
“Athletics has opened my eyes in many ways. I’ll remain focused and work with professionals to manage not only the sport side, but finances too,” he told Voice Sport.
“Going forward I can confidently say that great things are coming, this year was just a tip of what’s to come,” added the new 400m ace.
