We lack strategy to achieve our sports ambitions

Editor, RE: “Rwanda’s journey to sports glory” (The New Times, August 24). I would like to thank Ms Campbell-Rodriques for taking on this issue, providing an excellent summary of the kind of benefits international sporting prowess can represent for a country, and proposing disciplines in which Rwandan athletes have the potential to be competitive. I couldn’t agree with her more where she states; “while effective sports programmes take time to build they provide opportunities to a nation and its people,” or that “brand recognition and bragging rights go along with the financial gains which come from being a sporting nation.” The problem, in my view, is that we seem to have absolutely no strategy or any idea about how to go about achieving our sports ambitions. We seem to be content to merely muddle through in the hope that we might just somehow hit the jackpot. Until we sit back and think through why we are such underachievers in the world of sports, come up with a clear plan on how we correct our failings and focus on an effective implementation of that plan, we are doomed to remain also-rans in international sporting competitions. Maybe it is time we reached out to ask for help in this area from the Little Lion That Roars: Jamaica, population 2.7 million and a long list of champions, as compared to Rwanda, population, close to 12 million, champions: 0! Mwene Kalinda ************************** Thanks for taking the time to read and respond to the article. I am convinced that Rwanda will get there in the area of sports but it will take time given the number of other amazing things that the country is trying to accomplish at the moment. A partnership with my own country of Jamaica and Kenya may be the way forward. It was reported in the Jamaican press that Kenya will be helping Jamaica to train their long distance runners while Jamaica will be helping them to train Kenyan sprinters. Natalie Campbell-Rodriques

Opinions

We lack strategy to achieve our sports ambitions