Focus Media (Kigali)
Shyaka Kanuma
24 August 2008
column
To say that Rwanda's athletes at the ongoing Olympic Games in Beijing have performed disgracefully is to seriously understate things. The only person in the Rwandan camp who looks like an athlete is Dieudonne Disi and even he came in 20th in the men's 10,000 metre race won by Ethiopia's Kenenisa Bekele.
RNOC President Ignace Beraho and Beijing Delegation Leader Ntwali.
Disi could put up a credible performance because he is the only Rwandan sportsman that adequately prepares for major events like the Olympics. This is possible because he has international agents and he lives and trains away from officials of the Rwanda National Olympics Committee (RNOC).
The other "athletes" Ignace Beraho's RNOC shipped to Beijing are Pamela Girimbabazi and Jackson Niyomugabo (respectively women and men's 50 metres freestyle swimming) and Epiphanie Nyirabarame (women's marathon).
Ms. Girimbabazi and Mr. Niyomugabo competed in only one heat of their event and failed to qualify for further action. Ms. Girimbabazi's time was 39.78 seconds for the 50 metres dash. Mr. Niyomugabo's was 27.74 seconds. These times are not much faster than what a casual weekend swimmer can achieve.
Ms. Nyirabarame came in 66th in the women's marathon. She was third last. After Disi failed to come in anywhere near the top three, Rwanda's four "representatives" performed no further duty in Beijing.
Our national tourists to Beijing
Rwanda, as usual, sent a contingent to the Olympics composed of more officials than athletes-the ratio was slightly more than 2 officials to 1 athlete.
A source following the Games in Beijing gave Focus the following information: officials of the RNOC went on a shopping spree in and around the Chinese capital.
They were busy buying electronic gadgets and clothes. At one point the head of Rwanda's delegation to Beijing, Thierry Ntwari, could not be found. It turned out he was on personal business in Hong Kong, thousands of kilometers from Beijing.
The head of the Rwanda National Olympic Committee, Ignace Beraho, took his wife along for the trip. As the RNOC chief, Mr. Beraho is entitled to this perquisite.
He is also entitled to US$ 5000 just for showing up at the games. And since he is accountable to no one in Rwanda, but to officials of the International Olympics Committee thousands of kilometers overseas, he feels no unease at all if the "athletes" he takes to the Olympics (Athens and now Beijing) are badly half baked or perform poorly.
This lack of accountability explains for instance why the RNOC does not bother to prepare our athletes in any meaningful way.
The International Olympics Committee (IOC) gives Rwanda and other poor countries a grant of US$ 80,000 a year each for the purpose of developing sport and of nurturing and developing individual sporting talent. In this country there is nothing to show for that money.
The RNOC, it seems, is content with sending badly half baked sports men and women to represent us at each and every Olympics, and Beijing has been no different.
Pamela Girimbabazi and Jackson Niyomugabo "train" in the swimming pool at the Hotel Umubano. That pool cannot be more than 24 metres long. An Olympics size swimming pool is 50 metres long.
These swimmers, just like Epiphanie Nyirabarame the marathoner, had only a few months to prepare themselves for the Olympics. The RNOC showed absolutely no interest in preparing these athletes.
Serious national Olympic committees elsewhere prepare their sports men and women for years and years to compete at the Olympics. But it is the norm for the RNOC to leave our athletes to their own devices until three or four months to the games and then they stage a flurry of "preparations".
Olympic committees such as Rwanda's are headed by individuals only interested in going along for the ride and enjoying all the perquisites at their disposal-like international travel and stays in five star hotels.
The only way it is possible for them to send any athletes to the Olympics is because some disciplines, unlike track and field, do not require set, international qualifying times.
For instance it is possible for Rwanda to send swimmers to the Olympics because the only requirement is for the country to be a member of the international swimming federation.
That basically means you can recruit anyone off the streets and send them to compete against the likes of the US's Michael Phelps, or the other superstar before him, Australia's Ian Thorpe.
Rwanda claims it has a swimming federation. But it is only a shadow delegation that exists only to help the RNOC send poorly prepared swimmers to Olympics after Olympics.
Despite years of funding from the IOC and even support from the government of Rwanda the RNOC hasn't a single Olympic size swimming pool in the country, and neither does it look likely to have one any time in the near future.
The situation is the same with all the other member federations of the RNOC-athletics, cycling, volleyball, boxing, tennis et cetera. Even football, the supposed national sport, isn't much different.
Sports and Culture Minister Joseph Habineza is a member of Rwanda's delegation to Beijing. He must have a lot to ponder while there.
And Ignace Beraho has a much to answer for-for the embarrassing performance of the Rwandan Olympic teams, in Athens four years ago, and in Beijing.
Next week Focus brings you an in depth look at Ignace Beraho's regime at the RNOC.
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