Rwandan athletes are noticeably missing in the selected Africa team which will compete at the 2014 International Association of Amateur Federation-sanctioned (IAAF) Continental Cup set for Morocco from September 13.

"We didn’t plan for this year’s Continental Cup but it will be our consideration next year,” the national athletics federation’s technical director Jean-Pierre Ndacyayisenga told Times Sport yesterday.

He said: "The Continental Cup is one of the best events which would have helped local athletes to rub shoulders with other top runners from the globe.”

"It is sad that our athletes will miss out but that doesn’t mean that we are out of every continental championship,” added Ndacyayisenga.

The athletics body has big development of junior athletes and ambitions to send a big number of qualified athletes to 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games.

He noted that their focus is on the junior runners, who they want to prepare well for future local, continental and international competitions.

"We have promising athletes who were in Botswana, Glasgow and Nanjing Games and all these will be catered for to ensure that we prepare them adequately for the 2016 Olympic Games,” he added.

The Africa team has 80 athletes with Nigeria dominating with 17, followed by South Africa 13 and Kenya with six athletes. Team Africa will battle it out for points with teams from Europe, Americas and Asia-Pacific.