So here we go again. The next Olympic Games are just around the corner and it’s the same old story—last-minute preparations hence VERY poor performances for our athletes. It’s a pity! The Olympic Games is the most prestigious multi-sports gathering and the essence for these games is necessarily not to win but participate hence the slogan, ‘Participation is more important that winning’. For the 2008 Beijing Games, it is estimated that athletes will compete in 302 events in 28 sports; just one event more than was on the schedule of the Athens games of 2004. The 2008 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, will be celebrated from August 8 to 24, 2008 at the Beijing National Stadium in Beijing, People’s Republic of China. For most countries but athletes in particular, Rwandans inclusive, it’s a major honor to just take in part in the Olympic Games leave alone winning a medal(s). Remember countries have four years to prepare their athletes for the next Olympics after another but with just about 200 days remaining, in Rwanda there’s hardly anything to show any progress as far as preparing the athletes is concerned. What hurts me most and others like me, is to find that the people charged with preparing our athletes from top to bottom, are simply not up to the task whatsoever. They just seem not bothered at all with the responsibilities around them! When you ask them why they keep repeating the same old silly story, oh if I may put it in a more appropriately suiting word, mistake, all you get is another bogus answer, ‘lack of money’. How, for our sports development’s sake, do they expect to get money from wherever they always expect to get it, without any realizable strategic plans at hand? No way, one is going to give you his/her money, in this case the Youth, Culture and Sports ministry just for you to ‘waste’. I highly doubt these people responsible for preparing local athletes for the Olympic Games, led by the National Olympics Committee in corroboration with local federations have asked for the money in time and they don’t get it—I really have my misgivings on this. They wait until when it’s entirely too late to start doing things appallingly and in the process to make up for the time lost, deliberately or otherwise, things just go all wrong. With just over 200 days remaining before the Games kick off in the Chinese city of Beijing, the Rwanda National Olympics Committee (RNOC) commission responsible for preparing the Rwandan team is not even aware of the size of participants they would take! To make things even worse, only one athlete, Dieudonne Disi has so far qualified. Rwanda is expected to take four more disciplines in addition to athletics; including boxing, swimming, cycling and Paralympics (sports for the physically disabled). However, for boxing to qualify, they would have to go through two tough qualifying rounds, in Namibia and Algeria in January and April respectively. Unfortunately, we can’t read much from this because, I don’t think our boxers are good enough or would be ready to challenge for the few remaining tickets against some of the best fighters on the continent. Then, there is this wildcard thing I hate with purpose. I can’t figure out why we should time after time rely on our athletes participating in the Olympics courtesy of ‘wildcard’. I have never heard of an athlete on a wildcard who’s ever won an Olympics medal. In my opinion, athletes need to qualify (for the Olympic Games) through their effort, they ought to drop some sweat in qualifying that’s when they would give 100 percent when the real Games set off. Rwanda National Olympics Committee has already requested for wildcards in swimming, cycling and Paralympics, however, they are still waiting for the response, which they don’t know whether they would get or not and if they to get them, they won’t know it not before April. Nonetheless, athletes in the five sports disciplines should start preparation next month regardless of whether they (RNOC) knows the exact number of participants they would take to Beijing or not, an official in RNOC confirmed recently. In an ideal world or in countries where they know what it takes to win an Olympics medal, preparations takes four years but for Rwanda, the preparations have not even started with just about seven months remaining. Why can’t people learn to learn from past mistakes? Why should people continue repeating the same old mistake and they go away with it? The questions are many but the answers seem to be lacking every time, why? This is yet another question, which I’m certain as always, won’t get an answer to it because those who supposed to give the answer, like I said earlier, aren’t bothered at all with what’s going on around them. Away from the Olympic Games and the preparations or not, 2007 has been a year for ups and down for sports, locally and or on the international scene but as always, I would prefer to go with the ups and don’t let the downs spoil my mood going into yet another new year. Welcome 2008 and happy New Year to every one of you who takes time to read my blog, may you live to read more of the same into the year. Nimugapfe ibyiza biri imbere, loosely translated to mean, ‘Take care of yourselves, the future is bright’. Contact: nku78@yahoo.com
