LAST year, countless sports fans in the country were forced to come to terms with the sad fact that our 40-year-old medals drought at the multi-sport Paris Olympic Games would not be quenched at the Summer Games in one of the most internationally renowned cities in the world.

Indeed, our long-standing failure to garner even a measly single medal at the Paris Games last year left millions of Tanzanian sports buffs in the deep depths of gloom.

Now, Dear Reader, I’m sure that you must be asking yourself about why I revisit this matter arguably ad infinitum.

Well, it is because the Olympic Games are universally regarded as the undisputedly foremost festival of sports on the global stage.

It follows then that countries that wonderfully claim a medal or two at the Olympic Games are certain to feel a huge sense of pride and achievement from the remarkable medal-winning exploits of their respective elite sportsmen and sportswomen.

It should be noted here that only countries that engage in lengthy preparations for the Summer Games are most often the nations that secure an enormous number of medals at the quadrennial Olympics.

And, it should be tremendously concerning that as a country we have lamentably failed to claim even a single medal at the Olympic Games in our decades-old medals drought.

Incredibly, the reason why we have seemingly constantly underachieved at the Olympics is not even a massively-concealed secret on the local scene.

In fact, it is a reason multiple members of our local sports fraternity are well aware of and it can be encapsulated in one uncomplicated phrase, which is to wit: a glaring lack of preparation for the Summer Games.

Quite frankly, it is a mind-boggling fact that we are only compelled to prepare for the Olympics in the Eleventh Hour and it is astonishing as well to note that our modus operandi where preparations are concerned has changed extremely little during the last four decades.

Instead, what has become increasingly common on the domestic sports landscape in the wake of numerous Olympics is the unseemly finger-pointing that commences when we have realized that our athletes will be coming home once again embarrassingly empty-handed.

Strangely enough, the solution to our Olympic woes is utterly simple. We must urgently change our self-damaging habit of engaging in last gasp preparations for the Games, which as history tells us, has proven to be undeniably unsuccessful.

Let us now consider the 2024 CHAN championship, which will be co-hosted by Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya in a tad over two weeks’ time.

As the countdown to the big kick-off gathers pace, a plethora of unrestrained Tanzanian football fans will be keeping their fingers crossed in the hope that our beloved Taifa Stars’ team can make a lasting positive impression at the much-anticipated football competition.

Apart from the form of our national team at the CHAN Championship, another subject that will be scrutinized greatly at the competition is likely to be the overall quality of the football games in the tournament.

So, here’s hoping then that the championship, which is growing in significance, can serve up some seemingly thrill-a-minute football contests that will make for a treasure-trove of precious memories.