When the 2026 World Athletics Relays came to a close in Gaborone after three days of record-breaking performances, most of the athletes and spectators went home. But five artists selected to document the event through live painting were still in the stadium, putting the finishing touches on works that now stand as permanent records of a historic African sporting moment.
The five artists — Gomolemo Kgosimodimo, Joe De, Bezuba Kaunda, and two others — had been given a singular brief: watch the races from the stands, feel the energy of the crowd, and capture it all on canvas in real time. The result was the Live Painting Experience, an official programme of the 2026 World Athletics Relays and a first for the event on African soil.
Sport Meets Art: A New Way to Record History
For Gaborone-based artist Gomolemo Kgosimodimo, the concept was immediately compelling. “This whole idea was centered around the concept of sport and art. Sport meets art,” he said. “So it was just to capture the excitement, the energy, the joy of the event.”
Live painting is a form of performance art in which the act of painting is itself part of the artwork, not merely the finished piece. The public presence of the artists, working in full view of the crowd, creates a layered experience: the final canvas, the process of making it, and the energy of the moment all combining into something greater than any single element.
“Cameras and smartphones capture moments like this,” said Joe De. “Us, we capture it using brushes, canvas, and paint.”
Bezuba Kaunda described focusing on the physicality of the athletes — the muscles, the movement, the fitness — and translating that into the quick, confident strokes of a live sketch. “You capture the movement, the anatomy of them, you focus on the features, the fitness, the muscles,” she said. “Capture them properly, then you make the movement, with the quick sketch.”
Athletes as Artists
For Kaunda, the parallel between sport and art runs deeper than metaphor. “I believe athletes are artists, another form of art, because art is too much — it is not only drawing or doing it,” she said. “Also running is art, how you run is art, how you build your body is art.”
The 2026 World Athletics Relays were historic not just because Botswana hosted them — the first time the event has been held on African soil — but because of what the home nation and athletes achieved. Botswana andapos;s 4×400 metres relay team claimed a spectacular victory in front of a raucous home crowd, and the nation andapos;s athletics star Letsile Tebogo was celebrated by tens of thousands of fans who packed the national stadium.
More than 30,000 people filled Botswana andapos;s national stadium to welcome home the sprint relay team, and social media was alight with videos of the celebrations long after the last race was run.
Capturing Africa andapos;s Moment in Paint
The World Athletics Relays were organised by the Botswana Athletics Association, which specifically sought a major global event to coincide with the nation andapos;s 60th anniversary celebrations. The decision to bring the world andapos;s fastest athletes to Gaborone was itself a statement of intent: Africa is not just a participant in global sport, it is a host, a stage, and now — through the Live Painting Experience — a frame.
The five canvases produced over the weekend will join the official record of the 2026 Relays, joining photographs, video footage, and results as the artistic memory of an event that brought history to Gaborone.