Bri­an Lewis

The goal of achiev­ing 10 or more Olympic Gold medals by the year 2024 cre­at­ed de­bate. There were those who felt, and prob­a­bly still do, that its un­re­al­is­tic. They think that mak­ing the leap from two Olympic cham­pi­ons to 10 by 2024 is be­yond re­al.Then there are those who un­der­stand that achiev­ing that goal must first be­gin in the mind.

What comes next? Hav­ing ac­cept­ed men­tal­ly that achiev­ing 10 golds is pos­si­ble and is not out of reach, the next step is how are we go­ing to get those 10 or more gold medals.The Olympic Com­mit­tee has con­duct­ed a sur­vey and a fol­low up is now due.The sur­vey and oth­er re­search based sources are aimed at pro­vid­ing im­por­tant da­ta and analy­sis.

Bud­gets have to be done. As­sess­ments,mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­a­tion.What are the tar­gets and pro­jec­tions? These spe­cif­ic tar­gets must be es­tab­lished with­in the con­text of a long term ath­lete de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme.Har­ness­ing the abun­dant tal­ent and po­ten­tial can be done if there is a sys­tem­at­ic ap­proach. Win­ning medals are the end re­sult of a sys­tem­at­ic ap­proach be it lo­cal or for­eign.

When one con­sid­ers the per­for­mances of T&T on the sport­ing stage in re­cent weeks. It's about time that we put our col­lec­tive en­er­gies to work. We can make a name a pos­i­tive name for T&T on the glob­al sport stage.I ac­cept that based on all the eco­nom­ic ex­perts T&T is fac­ing a daunt­ing eco­nom­ic fu­ture. The pre­dic­tions are that who ever wins the up­com­ing na­tion­al elec­tion must make some hard de­ci­sions.

That be­ing so. There may well be the view that sport is sur­plus to re­quire­ments.It is hoped that this is not go­ing to be the at­ti­tude to­wards sport.Give T&T sport a fight­ing chance. Dou­ble even triple the al­lo­ca­tions to sport.But put in ef­fec­tive mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­a­tion sys­tems. Get the key stake­hold­ers in­volved. Let them say what they want.

The fun­ny thing is that even as this col­umn is call­ing to triple the al­lo­ca­tion, we are mind­ful that cer­tain changes re­quire an at­ti­tu­di­nal and mind­set change more than a mon­e­tary one.It can be done. Lets give it a re­al­ly good go. With one year to go to Rio Olympics lets put a huge ef­fort be­hind a podi­um quest.

Lets aim to ex­ceed the Lon­don 2012 medal count.Be not afraid of the chal­lenge. Lets not be in­tim­i­dat­ed. Lets go for it.There is lit­tle mar­gin for er­ror with 365 days to go to Rio 2016.Let me take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­grat­u­late this coun­try's Toron­to 2015 Pan Am Games team, So­ca War­riors and The Red Steel. They all lift­ed the spir­its of a na­tion buf­fet­ed by an in­tol­er­a­ble crime sit­u­a­tion.

The joy that spreads through the na­tion be­cause of the pos­i­tive ex­ploits on the field of sport is there for all to see.Time and time again sport has de­liv­ered. What more can sport do to prove its case?T&T, the dawn of a new gold­en era for sport is at hand.Lets not blow it be­cause of short sight­ed­ness.

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

Sup­port #10Golds24 Ath­lete Wel­fare and Prepa­ra­tion Fund make your do­na­tions to any branch of Sco­tia­bank ac­count num­ber 171188.