Rwanda made its Olympic debut at Los Angeles 1984 and has competed in every Games since.

Tokyo 2020 was the country’s 10th Olympic appearance, but Rwanda is still waiting to get on the podium.

Rwanda sent a team of six athletes to the Japanese capital - three in athletics, two in cycling and one in swimming.

Another athlete, marathon runner Félicien Muhitira, was thrown off the country's team after breaching COVID-19 rules at a training camp.

Uwayo, only elected as RNOSC President in May following the resignation of Valens Munyabagisha the previous month, wants to review the way Rwandan athletes prepare for future Olympics and plans to review coaching, budget and infrastructure.

"We obviously need to revisit the way we prepare athletes, coaching, budget, and infrastructure," Uwayo told The New Times in Kigali.

"We need to revisit the way we do things. 

"It's obvious that we don't invest all that is need to prepare an athlete to compete at the level of the Olympic Games.

"Those [countries] who take medals home are doing so because there are certain investments put in them that we don't put in ours.

"It's not because we don't want to invest in them, but we lack that investment most of the times.

"There weren't enough means put in preparing our athletes."

Four of the six who represented Rwanda at Tokyo 2020 were awarded universality places by the International Olympic Committee.

"Some athletes get invitations to the Olympic Games because they failed to qualify," Uwayo said.

"It was just for the sake of the fact that the country is supposed to be represented."

The best performance ever by a Rwanda competitor at the Olympics came at London 2012 when Robert Kajuga finished 14th in the men’s 10,000 metres.

Uwayo claimed that the situation would only begin to improve once Rwanda began investing more resources into preparation for the Olympics.

"The athletes are not to blame," Uwayo told The New Times. 

"The solution must be found elsewhere, and we must open up our eyes to achieve the targeted results.

"There are means missing from preparing coaches, the budget, how long an athlete is prepared and so forth... and if you don't do it, you can't achieve anything.

"There are means we need to be given to make this happen.

"Sports needs to be invested in, just like health, education and so forth.

"But if it can't be done like that, I don't think we will go a single step ahead.

"There is no magic in winning medals because when you invest, things go right.

"It's a debate that we must involve all sports federations to find the solution.

"Otherwise, we will remain that way if we don't invest in what is needed."