Bri­an Lewis

The home of sport cham­pi­ons and gold medals. It's an as­pi­ra­tion, a dream, a big goal. T&T can be a dream fac­to­ry a place where sport dreams be­come re­al­i­ty. But re­al­i­ty de­mands an ac­tion plan.

One char­ac­ter­is­tic all cham­pi­ons have is they are nev­er com­plete­ly sat­is­fied with their per­for­mance. They are their own harsh­est crit­ic.

It's all about mak­ing your­self pre­pared. You can't doubt your­self. You have to be con­fi­dent and go for it. In big games and events and at big mo­ments, it comes down to who wants it most. When every­one is tired, it's about who wants it most, who will dig deep and make the ex­tra ef­fort.

What dri­ves a cham­pi­on? It's the joy found in ef­fort. The res­olute quest for ex­cel­lence. It's the courage to lay down a mark­er.

Last Sat­ur­day at the Jean Pierre Com­plex, the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) held the first of three fit­ness tests as part of the se­lec­tion cri­te­ria for up­com­ing Com­mon­wealth, Youth Olympics and Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games.

Start­ed in 1997, there is an im­prove­ment in the at­ti­tude of some sports to the con­cept of the "Beep" test.

This im­prove­ment was on dis­play at the Com­plex as some 100 ath­letes of vary­ing ages from a num­ber of sports turned up.

The TTOC was sup­port­ed by To­bias Ot­t­ley, ex­ec­u­tive man­ag­er of the Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T High Per­for­mance Unit and his staff.

It was a fan­tas­tic at­mos­phere. There are some ex­treme­ly bright and tal­ent­ed young peo­ple who have fol­lowed their pas­sion and gone and stud­ied sports sci­ence, sports med­i­cine, sports nu­tri­tion, sports man­age­ment, sport phys­i­ol­o­gy, bio me­chan­ics, ki­ne­si­ol­o­gy etc, and they are will­ing to give back and make a con­tri­bu­tion.

I make the bold pre­dic­tion that it is these young peo­ple who will be the cat­a­lyst for the trans­for­ma­tion of sport in T&T.

Those who doubt that T&T could be the home of world cham­pi­ons and Olympic gold medals need­ed to be at the Com­plex to see for them­selves the rev­o­lu­tion tak­ing place.

The TTOC is com­mit­ted to cre­at­ing the en­vi­ron­ment that will en­cour­age, en­gage and em­pow­er ath­letes, youth and young peo­ple. They must have a voice and be giv­en equal op­por­tu­ni­ty.

T&T sport need new ideas, new hopes, new as­pi­ra­tions, new peo­ple and more cre­ativ­i­ty.

This is why the TTOC's Ath­lete Com­mis­sion ca­reer, men­tor and wel­fare pro­grammes are es­sen­tial.

If we want T&T to be the breed­ing ground for young tal­ent. We have to meet our ath­letes and young peo­ple at the point of their need.

The fu­ture for the next gen­er­a­tion of sport stars can be as bright as we want to make it.

But to do so we must tap in to the vi­sion, en­thu­si­asm and com­mit­ment of the ath­letes and the young peo­ple who want to make a con­tri­bu­tion. The con­cept of pay­ing your dues must not be an ar­ti­fi­cial bar­ri­er.

The views, ideas, con­cerns and voice of the ath­letes and young peo­ple must be wel­comed, em­braced, em­pow­ered and giv­en pri­or­i­ty.

Young peo­ple must be giv­en a hands on role in spread­ing the gospel of sport. In­vest­ing in youth is a pri­or­i­ty. We have an in­cred­i­bly tal­ent­ed group of young peo­ple with­in T&T sport.

Give them a chance. The faith shown in them will be of im­mense ben­e­fit not on­ly to sport but T&T so­ci­ety on the whole.

Em­pow­er them. The fu­ture of sport is in the hands, minds, voic­es and spir­it of young peo­ple who are de­ter­mined to make a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence.

They need op­por­tu­ni­ty and pos­i­tive role mod­els and to be part of a bot­tom up and grass­roots mo­bil­i­sa­tion that sym­bol­is­es val­ues of hon­esty, in­tegri­ty, ex­cel­lence and achieve­ment.

Sport can help young peo­ple live a life of joy.

Bri­an Lewis is the Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee- http://www.ttoc.org/. The views ex­pressed aren't nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the TTOC.