Bri­an Lewis

Har­ness­ing tra­di­tion­al high per­for­mance sport sys­tems by us­ing tech­nol­o­gy can rad­i­cal­ly change the way things have been done to ben­e­fit sports lo­cal­ly.

It's a time in the his­to­ry of sport in T&T where change is now a ne­ces­si­ty. The chal­lenges fac­ing most na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions (NSOs) will not be bluffed away.

Un­der­stand­ing there is a re­luc­tance to ad­mit that a mind­set change is re­quired, is not easy. Change and what tran­si­tion change will bring is dis­ori­en­ta­tion. But press­ing ahead is the on­ly way for­ward, how­ev­er, ris­ing above the lack of re­sources will prove in­sur­mount­able to many.

If by sheer force of will things could re­main the same there are sport stake­hold­ers who would hap­pi­ly leave things as they are, hop­ing against a cher­ish de­sire that the tide will turn and prob­lems will be solved.

But wish­ful think­ing is not a prob­lem solver. NSOs are strug­gling to stay afloat. Gov­ern­ment is bat­tling with the fi­nan­cial re­al­i­ty and it's hard for most of the pop­u­lace to ac­cept.

NSOs are in de­nial as far as their de­pen­den­cy on pub­lic fund­ing is firm­ly en­trenched with in their op­er­a­tions. How­ev­er, it's not the eas­i­est or best of times but things are by no means doom and gloom.

Those sport stake­hold­ers that are brave and will­ing to ac­cept the re­al­i­ty and seek the op­por­tu­ni­ties with­in the chal­lenges will cer­tain­ly be the bet­ter for it. This isn't the time for de­nial.

In this re­gard, the vis­it of Olympic leg­end Michael John­son and his team of per­for­mance ex­perts from the Michael John­son Per­for­mance (MJP) cen­tre will present an op­por­tu­ni­ty. John­son un­der­stands hav­ing lived the ex­pe­ri­ence what is re­quired and nec­es­sary to acheive Olympic and World cham­pi­on gold medal suc­cess.

His, may not be the on­ly way but his proven suc­cess and life­time achieve­ments, have giv­en him the cred­i­bil­i­ty to share his thoughts and ideas since he had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to meet and pro­vide cer­tain ser­vices to a num­ber of Team TTO ath­letes and coach­es. The event will pro­vide for in­ter­est­ing con­ver­sa­tions over the next two days.

In a sig­nif­i­cant way the vis­it of John­son to lo­cal shores can on­ly con­tribute in a mean­ing­ful way to the TeamT­TO Rio 2016 re­view process. Us­ing the re­view process to set out the way for­ward to 10 golds by 2024, is the ob­jec­tive.

There will al­ways be op­por­tu­ni­ty in any sit­u­a­tion even while search­ing for an­swers in a con­struc­tive and pos­i­tive way.

It's an ex­cit­ing time in T&T with loads of opor­tu­ni­ties de­spite hav­ing lots of chal­lenges and over the next three days of high per­for­mance con­ver­sa­tions there will be enough food for thought.

The T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) high per­for­mance part­ners bpTT and MJP along with key Olympic move­ment stake­hold­ers will brain­storm ideas and views that will ben­e­fit Team TTO for the fu­ture and in sup­port of the TTOC ob­jec­tive of 10 golds24.

ED­I­TOR'S NOTE­Bri­an Lewis is the pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee. The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the TTOC.