The World Athletics Championships ended in Eugene, Oregon, USA on Sunday, July 24. It was a great ten-day sports spectacle of the world’s finest track and field athletes. I don’t know how much they were watched here in Rwanda. Probably little. Except for the real fanatics, addicts really, who will follow sports events wherever they take place and at whatever ungodly hour. There are several reasons for this. First, track and field is not very big in this country. And so few would take notice of such a championship even if it were near. Others who may, will give it scant attention. Second, there was no Rwandan representation at the games. So there was no personal or national interest in them. Third, they happened far away, in a different time zone, nine hours behind. Enough to be in a different universe. Few would stay up late or all night to watch. It was, after all, not the football World Cup. Who won what event and got what medal at Eugene? The usual suspects took most of the honours. The Americans, Jamaicans and Brits shone in the sprints. But they no longer take every medal on offer. The Canadians, other Caribbean nations, and some Europeans have been muscling their way to the podium and stealing some of the limelight. West Africans, especially Nigerians, Ivorians and Ghanaians, and South Africans, too, are giving the traditional sprint kings/queens stiff competition and something to think about when they next meet. Occasionally they snatch a gold medal, like Tobi Amusan of Nigeria did in the women’s 100 metre hurdles. She even set a world record on the way to the gold. East Africans have long ruled middle and distance running. It used to be Ethiopians and Kenyans rivalling for dominance on the track or the road. No longer. The Ugandans have demanded and got a say in the matter. Burundians are also trying but they have not made much of an impression yet. North Africa, too, particularly Morocco and Algeria, continue to make life difficult for the East Africans and from time to time take some of the top medals. Africa is well-represented at the elite level of world athletics, you might say. Not exactly. It is only a thin outer ring of the continent that is. The rest of Africa – the bigger, inside part – is not. Why is this so? What happens there that prevents their nationals from taking part in global track and field athletics at the highest level? Maybe we should not be asking about what happens but talking about what does not happen, even here in Rwanda. In all these places where winning medals is a habit, almost a national right, sports development is a big thing. They invest a lot in it – build infrastructure, spot and nurture talent right from primary school through college, offer scholarships, and hold regular competitions at different levels. Not so here and in many of those countries outside that outer ring. Only the old, established schools have any sports facilities. Even these are not put to optimal use. New ones do not and there are no signs they ever will. It should not be like this. Something has changed, and for the worse. Sports facilities used to be a requirement for a school to be licensed to operate. Obviously that is not the case now. The high-achieving nations and the rest seem to have a different definition of achievement and success, or even talent. In countries such as ours the measure of success is excellence in academics. That is the only talent that counts. Sometimes sport is looked at only as a hobby, not a career option in its own right for those with special aptitude. Of course, it is a leisure pastime or a fitness exercise for most people, but a lot more for others. Something has to change if we want to be part of the global sporting community, not just as spectators however enthusiastic or beneficiaries in other ways, but as active participants. That should not be difficult. Rwandans love sports. The urban ones almost worship it. Some inspiration could come out of this. First to change should be the attitude to sports so that it is seen as a worthwhile, profitable pursuit, even profession, not something done as a by-the-way or only for a short time or launchpad into more permanent occupation. Second, invest in it. Put in money in it, train, organise tourneys, and mobilise as only Rwandans know how. This is both for sports authorities and athletes themselves. Athletes from sporting superpowers do not wake up one morning to find themselves stars. They earn it. It is a reward for hard work, perseverance, training and discipline, and, above all, the desire to excel, to win. We are already doing well building world-class sports infrastructure and attracting prestigious global tournaments and big names in sports to Rwanda. That will probably inspire some young people. It would even be better if we had local talent taking part in some of these tourneys. Fourth, we should identify a niche game where we have or had some sort of competitive advantage and develop it. It should be easy. We have already found a niche in cycling and basketball. We can revive disciplines where Rwandans used to excel. High jump, for instance. The pictures we see of men clearing heights close to three metres should not remain a historical curiosity but spur a desire to emulate them. They did it without expert training or reward beyond personal satisfaction and community appreciation of their feat. Think of what they could have achieved with professional training, appropriate equipment and a path to fame and wealth beyond Rwanda’s borders. Or javelin. Not too long ago (six decades) little boys on village squares regularly tried to outdo each other on who would throw a spear the farthest and also hit a target, often a moving one. Young men did the same in Itorero. It may have been target practice for a different purpose, but those skills can be transferred and adapted to sport. These are in our history and culture. We can draw from them for our own sports development – a sort of home-grown solution for athletics. The views expressed in this article are of the writer.
