Bri­an Lewis

The de­ci­sion to walk the 26.2 dis­tance in the T&T In­ter­na­tion­al Marathon had a twofold mo­tive–to raise aware­ness and fund­ing for the 10 Olympic medals or more by the year 2024 #10golds24 ath­lete wel­fare and prepa­ra­tion fund.

Many have asked what I was think­ing about when I de­cid­ed to do the marathon. My main thought was the ath­letes and what could I do to raise aware­ness and sup­port for the con­cept of a fund ded­i­cat­ed to ath­letes.

In the lead up to the marathon and since suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ing the marathon the ex­pres­sions of sup­port have far ex­ceed­ed the neg­a­tives.

Now the hard work will be to get the fund­ing to match the ex­pres­sions of sup­port.

Rais­ing aware­ness is not suf­fi­cient or good enough. This is not a one-and-done jour­ney.

There will be many tri­als and tribu­la­tions, but what will prove es­sen­tial is the spir­it of re­silience and per­se­ver­ance.

I be­lieve in the very core of my be­ing that the tal­ent we have here is enor­mous and that the re­al­i­ty is that many of our young ath­letes have great­ness and the po­ten­tial to be great in­side of them.

What they need is the sup­port and peo­ple around them who can nur­ture their self-be­lief.

I be­lieve that our ath­letes are ca­pa­ble. I be­lieve that this coun­try can pro­duce more Olympic cham­pi­ons.

Not every­one has to be­lieve that it is pos­si­ble. We just need a small band of de­ter­mined and ded­i­cat­ed en­ablers who have the con­vic­tion that our young peo­ple de­serve a chance.

Dur­ing my walk, at one of the low­est points when I was hurt­ing men­tal­ly, phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly, a lit­tle girl about eight or nine years old stand­ing on the pave­ment near a wa­ter stop gave me a do­na­tion of $85 dol­lars. I re­call look­ing at the lit­tle girl and at her do­na­tion and say­ing to Sgt Roger Daniel: "I have to fin­ish." That lit­tle girl rep­re­sent­ed why I was do­ing the walk. She re­mind­ed me that the chil­dren, youth and young peo­ple as rep­re­sent­ed by the na­tion's ath­letes want­ed to as­pire for some­thing greater.

It is a mo­ment and an in­ter­ac­tion I will nev­er for­get be­cause it served to shake me out of a mo­ment of self-doubt.

#10GOLDS24 is an af­fir­ma­tion that we can as­pire and achieve big goals. It's a dare and a chal­lenge. Do we have what it takes? Do we be­lieve that we can achieve Olympic great­ness?

That so many peo­ple have ex­pressed their sup­port is a clear in­di­ca­tion that many of us have the self-be­lief that we de­serve bet­ter than we are cur­rent­ly get­ting.

All that has hap­pened over the years is that we were brain­washed in­to think­ing that we didn't have what was re­quired and there­fore must be grate­ful for small mer­cies.

I en­joyed the walk. It was tough, but I en­joyed it.

The team­work, the sup­port, the ca­ma­raderie.

On two oc­ca­sions I had to re­ceive treat­ment for se­vere cramp but at no time did those walk­ing with me sug­gest that I would have to quit.

Quit­ting just wasn't on the cards.

So where do we go from here? How do we build on the mo­men­tum of the suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of the marathon walk?

Time will tell. But rest as­sured there is no turn­ing back.

#10GOLDS24 Ath­lete wel­fare and prepa­ra­tion is un­der­way.

Do­na­tions are re­quired on an on­go­ing ba­sis and can be made at any Sco­tia Bank. The TTOC's ac­count num­ber is 171188 or by cheque made payable to TTOC and mailed to or dropped off at Olympic House 121 Abre­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain.

Bri­an Lewis is the pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee. The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the Olympic Com­mit­tee.