For the last two weeks, I’ve enjoyed the Summer Olympic Games in Paris and cheered for every team and athlete representing Africa. I felt immense pride watching Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo compete against and defeat the best North American and Caribbean athletes on his way to winning the gold medal in the 200-meter sprint event.
That same pride surged within me as I watched the South African team unexpectedly take silver in the men's 4x100 relay. Our East African brothers and sisters from Uganda and Kenya performed exceptionally well, as we’ve come to expect, in middle and long-distance running.
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The South Sudan men&039;s basketball team (representing our continent) showcased African basketball to the world. The West Africans took home a few medals, as did the North Africans. All in all, it was a successful Olympics for Africans—except for Rwandans.
Not only did the 8-person Rwandan team fail to win a single medal, but they also didn’t even compete at a competitive level, if we’re being honest with ourselves. None of our athletes finished 4th, 7th, or even 10th place.
Yves Nimubona’s 21st place finish in the 10,000-meter run was Rwanda’s best performance at the Paris Olympics. I’m not trying to be harsh toward our athletes, who I’m sure gave their best effort, but let’s be honest: we were embarrassingly bad.
I wish I could say our lack of medals was due to our small population (compared to, say, China, the US, or Nigeria) and limited financial resources. But tiny Cabo Verde, with a population just over 500,000, won a bronze medal, as did the Refugee Olympic team—a team literally made up of stateless people.
Rwanda’s poor performance in Paris wasn’t a fluke. Over the last 30 years, we’ve won zero medals at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, London, Beijing, Athens, Sydney, and Atlanta. And if we aren’t careful, we’ll continue this shameful streak in Los Angeles in 2028.
What I love most about sports is its simplicity: what you put in is what you get out. It’s the ultimate meritocracy. No matter what you do, if you don’t do the foundational work, you’ll never see success.
So, when I see our athletes fail repeatedly, I understand it’s a failure at the structural level with plenty of blame to go around. The Ministry of Sports needs to take ownership of this failure, as does our National Olympic Committee.
But there’s no point crying over spilled milk—what’s done is done.
What I want to know is, what’s the plan moving forward? Does the Sports Ministry have a strategic plan to identify and nurture talent? Is it providing coaching skills to primary and secondary school teachers? Is it working to partner with major local private sector players like MTN and BK to support athletics?
Rwandans were historically good at high jump and archery—can there be a strategic program to find talent in these two sports? How about shooting? Our military and police forces include tens of thousands of young men and women with basic proficiency in shooting.
Are you telling me that our security services cannot identify a few people who can compete, and win, in Olympic skeet and pistol competitions?
Do we have strategic plans to build high-altitude training centers in the mountains of Nyamagabe, Rutsiro, and Musanze for our athletes? If so, when are they opening?
I know it’s tempting to wallow in our sporting mediocrity and come up with all sorts of excuses as to why we cannot compete internationally, but we must resist that temptation.
The blueprint for sporting success is well known—all we have to do is follow it. The question is, do we want to, or are we just happy to be there?
The author is a socio-political commentator