The Rio Olympics are now history, but it's crucial to take stock of our successes and failures in order to build on our progress since 2008. One event in Rio stands out to me as a symbol for elite sport. In the men's long jump, our own Luvo Manyonga won silver with a jump of 8.37m.Agonisingly, he was pipped in the final round by Jeff Henderson of the US, who jumped 8.38m. That's 0.12%, separating Manyonga from an even more remarkable story than the one we already celebrate.But there's more - those who watched the event may remember that the very final jump of the competition, by American Jarrion Lawson, was actually its biggest. After his huge jump, he celebrated as though he'd done enough to win gold. As he landed, however, his trailing left hand brushed the sand, and as per the rules, that's the mark used for measurement, so Lawson's possible gold ended up as a fourth (he was 4cm off bronze).My point is, Manyonga's silver was 1cm from gold, but it was also one lazy hand away from bronze.When you grasp the significance of that, then you've understood how fragile victory (and defeat) is, and what it takes to win Olympic medals.Results are decided on the tiniest margins and any hint of underperformance makes a significant difference.Just ask Lawson.Now, with that in mind, we celebrate South Africa's best medal haul in an Olympics since readmission - and joint best ever.Ten medals, which include two gold across five sports, represent another step forward since the nadir of a single silver in Beijing 2008.We have much to celebrate and Wayde van Niekerk's extraordinary 400m is the pinnacle.While we celebrate, however, let's not be so self-congratulatory that we neglect to learn from our failures. And more importantly, our successes.Few people truly do the former, but those who learn from success are in a tiny minority.The ability to succeed and still recognise what needs to be changed is what turns champions into legends.So the post-Olympic Games debrief, which will no doubt be led by Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula, who will take the credit (and selfies) where it is not due, should also earnestly seek to understand our success.In fact, this needs to be the focus because our rivals will not waste time figuring out how to stop their equivalent of "lazy hands" from derailing their future medal ambitions.So, we must ask what the likes of SA Rowing, Chad le Clos, Henri Schoeman, Van Niekerk and Sunette Viljoen have done, and what they needed, and then seek to provide it for as many athletes as possible as we move towards 2020.One crucial point is that we cannot continue to rely on "luck" to discover and match our obvious talent with our best coaches.Our individual successes should make us recognise that we possess the two most important qualities for national sporting success - great potential in athletes, and willing, committed and qualified coaches and support staff.The entire sporting strategy exists to marry those together.Rio 2016 shows that this has happened for more SA athletes than ever before. But is it by design, or chance, and what of the next generation? I'd argue that we are still too "organic" and reactive.The "symptom" of our systematic failure to create these marriages is the dearth of women Olympians, especially in the pool. There is no reason why we should produce multiple men's medallists while not a single woman even qualifies.This points to a failure to proactively seek those women. Rowing has done it, which is why they had two women's boats in the world's top five in Rio. Other sports, however, lag behind.If we cannot replicate the success by creating more of the same, then this Rio 2016 pinnacle will quickly transform into the more mundane four to six medals of a typical SA campaign...