THE success of the Fiji 7s team at the Rio Olympics should be a wake-up call for other sporting bodies that have been using the Olympic Games to set personal best.

Fiji has been part of the Olympics for more than five decades and yet athletes and sporting bodies are still using the Games to improve their record rather then focus on winning medals.

In this year’s Games, this newspaper interviewed officials and athletes on their Olympic Games target and the responses were similar ? to improve from previous outings and set new personal best in the respective events ? except for the rugby 7s men and women.

Team Fiji chef de mission to the Rio Olympics Cathy Wong has called on sporting bodies to change their mind-sets.

She said athletes should re-look at their Olympic Games goal and instead of trying to set personal best in their respective events, the target of all Olympians should be to win a medal.

Wong said the benchmark set by the rugby should be an eye-opener to all sporting bodies.

She said proper planning and preparation should be made from grassroots level and preparation for the Olympics should take more than eight years for an athlete to be an Olympic Games medal prospect.

“From my observations on what has been happening to prepare for Olympic Games medal it has to be eight years in advance,” said Wong.

“We have to go back and recruit from primary school level if we want a medal. That means our national federations need to start planning in advance to get that medal.

“It means planning, preparation and long-term vision of what is required. We need to expose our athletes to high competition and again this goes back to planning and preparation.

“We cannot plan for two years in advance. If you want to be an Olympic medal contender it will be eight or more years of preparation.

“Talent identification and nurturing of these talents need to be considered seriously. We need to look at the structure of Kaji rugby, secondary school rugby and that same structure must be the same to all sporting bodies in Fiji.”

However, Wong said Team Fiji’s performance in Rio was the best ever compared with their previous Olympic Games outings.

She said apart from rugby 7s, they had set good records at this year’s event particularly in the weight-lifting where Apolonia Vaivai finished 11th overall.

“Our performance on the field has been very successful.

“We are coming home with the gold medal, our athletes have done well. Robert Elder competed well in archery while Sisilia Seavula running at the Olympics for the very first time actually qualified to the second round.

“Also Winston Hill performed extremely well considering this is his first outing. He only took up the sport three years ago and he did well against someone who has been fighting for the past 14 years.

“The football team came up against the world champs and managed to do well. Our swimming team, a very young team, first-time Olympians now they have a good platform for Tokyo 2020.

“The weight-lifting team had Apolonia who finished 11th overall, one of the best performance so far.”

Wong reiterated the performance of the Fiji 7s rugby team would inspire local athletes to win medals at the Olympics despite the lack of proper training facilities.

She said the rugby boys gave hope and confidence to do well at the world stage.

“The rugby 7s team has given the confidence to all sporting bodies in Fiji that they can also do well.

“If the rugby boys can win gold medal, I believe other sporting bodies can also do the same. It makes every sportsperson in Fiji realise that with the limited resources and less financial support, organisational structure we are working with, we have defied all odds and stamped our mark as the best in the business at the Olympics.

“We are competing with nations that have $30m budget yet we won gold and this makes it possible for anybody to go out there with good preparation, good planning, good management and good team leaders to do well.

“Rugby has opened the pathways for all teams in Fiji,” she added.

Team Fiji will depart Rio today and is scheduled to arrive home on Sunday.