Bri­an Lewis

An ath­lete's jour­ney to the Olympics is nev­er easy. Nor is it short. To be an Olympian means to push every bound­ary, to dig deep in­to the reser­voirs of soul and mind, to com­pete with every ounce of en­er­gy.

How then do we in­spire a new gen­er­a­tion and the next one to un­der­take the Odyssey to the Olympic Games? To put aside dis­trac­tions and stay the course–a course that is filled with ob­sta­cles. The temp­ta­tions to slip in­to medi­oc­rity and to low­er the per­for­mance bar is ever present, the road to ex­cel­lence–sus­tained ex­cel­lence–is not a crowd­ed one.

Just one year ago in Lon­don, T&T cre­at­ed its own Olympic his­to­ry with four Olympic medals rep­re­sent­ing the most ever since the red, black and white first par­tic­i­pat­ed in the glob­al mul­ti-sport event way back in 1948. How do we build on Lon­don 2012?

Good struc­ture pro­vides a frame­work in which ex­cel­lence can flour­ish: NSO and the Olympic Com­mit­tee's job is to re­move ob­sta­cles from the path­way to suc­cess.

In this con­text, ten gold medals by the year 2024 is more than just a medal ob­jec­tive. If it were, it would be doomed to fail. It first has to be a cul­ture, a mind­set, an at­ti­tude, a life ex­pe­ri­ence and a process.

It can't be rhetoric, wish­ful think­ing or a half-heart­ed ef­fort.

Ten gold medals by 2024 is al­so about trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty–a yard­stick and a bench­mark.

A guide and fence line that says ex­cel­lence lives here. It's a chal­lenge to live an un­com­mon life–a step-by-step pro­gres­sion where sports­men and women im­prove every day and com­pete up to their po­ten­tial, un­der­stand­ing that a lit­tle im­prove­ment each day makes a big dif­fer­ence over time.

Ten gold medals by 2024 is in­ten­tion­al–set­ting the right pri­or­i­ties and do­ing the things that mat­ter most.

In the movie Char­i­ots of Fire, Er­ic Lid­dell said: "I be­lieve God made me for a pur­pose, but he al­so made me fast. And when I run, I feel his plea­sure."

How to un­lock a win­ning mind­set?

You have to work at it. A win­ning men­tal­i­ty is built up over a pe­ri­od of time. It's not a case of be­ing born with a good at­ti­tude and work eth­ic.

You have to sur­round your­self with peo­ple that have ac­count­abil­i­ty in­side of them. They want to win every sin­gle day. High stan­dards have to be set.

Sport lead­ers, coach­es, man­agers and ad­min­is­tra­tors set the tone for a win­ning men­tal­i­ty. They cre­ate a win­ning en­vi­ron­ment.

Young peo­ple thrive in an en­joy­able at­mos­phere, one that en­cour­ages hard work and prepa­ra­tion.

How do we in­still the dri­ve to keep go­ing every sin­gle year, to keep win­ning ti­tles, tro­phies and medals...that re­lent­less na­ture that win­ning habit?

Win­ners un­der­stand it isn't al­ways go­ing to go their way. You will face ad­ver­si­ty, but you can't get too down when you are los­ing or get too car­ried away when you are win­ning.

The right mind­set comes from hav­ing a be­lief in your abil­i­ty and the con­fi­dence to over­come dif­fi­cult mo­ments.

You need peo­ple who will set an ex­am­ple with how they be­have, act and train.

Faster. High­er. Stronger–Citius. Al­tius. For­tius.

The glob­al­ly recog­nised Olympic Games is the show­piece event. The pin­na­cle.

What's the mas­ter plan for the show­piece?

Bri­an Lewis is Pres­i­dent of the Olympic Com­mit­tee. For in­fo on Olymp­ism and the Olympic Games vis­it http:// www.ttoc.org.

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