London 2012 Olympics are now history.

And as predicted by this newspaper; and perhaps expected by all Rwandans familiar with the shortcomings in the management of our sports, our representatives to the games returned home empty handed.

It is futile to keep the debate on about why Rwanda continues to miss out on the medal list during every Olympics, because we all know where the problem lies - that is lack of training and organization.

Instead let us shift the debate to look at the future - for as a country, there is not much we can do about the past, but can certainly do a lot to salvage the future.

So, the question to the Rwanda Olympics Committee is: What is our game plan for Rio de Janeiro, 2016?

Four years from now is not a very long time, but good enough for determined minds to make improvements that can better our performance.

Rwanda Olympics Committee and the ministry of sports therefore need to work on some practical roadmap to Rio 2016.

One such roadmap can implore how to immediately embarking on talent search through national school and regional athletic competitions. And these should target identifying athletes and players in field where the country appears to have some competitive advantages. Such players should then immediately be facilitated to embark on rigorous training.

We could look at games like table tennis where there some basic infrastructure, marathon (long distance running) where the country's high altitude provides a good training environment, swimming among others.

Swimming for example requires some little investment in a world-class training swimming pool which the national Olympics committee can co-finance with the government using part of the over $180,000 the body receives annually for the development of sports in the country.

With this kind of facility in place, our sportsmen should be able to rate themselves against possible competitors during training sessions. Otherwise it is a waste of time for our swimmers who train in small-size pools to attempt to compete with competitors who use world-class facilities in training.

Let the local Olympics Committee set specific targets for the coming four years and work towards achieving them because last-minute preparations have failed to yield anything in the past. Only careful planning will save us the national embarrassment of flying non-starters to simply make an appearance in world competitions.