Editor, RE:“Rwandan sport lacks role models to inspire youngsters” (The New Times, September 4). Your commentator nailed it! In our globalised world where even the youngest are familiar, through television and other media, with the exploits of the likes of Messi, Ronaldo, Usain Bolt, Serena Williams, Lewis Hamilton, and other global superstars who dominate in their respective disciplines, few youngsters are so lacking in ambition as to want to limit their dreams to emulating locals who have won nothing. They dream only of equaling or even surpassing the exploits of their heroes, invariably those who have reached and claimed for themselves the top perch at the pinnacle of their respective fields of competition. Success in one area almost always seeps everywhere boosting self-belief and breeding comparable success everywhere else. No child ever limited its dreams to playing second fiddle to anyone else, let alone grow up to be an anonymous also-ran. The greater their identification with their heroic role model, the greater their ambition to be like him or her, which is why we need to begin working more strategically rather than haphazardly towards fashioning such successful national role models for our youth to emulate. It can’t be left to mere chance, unless we want to still be at our hit-and-miss approach to building sporting success 50 years from now! Mwene Kalinda
