Bri­an Lewis

For any num­ber of rea­sons, peo­ple have short mem­o­ries or their re­call may be sit­u­a­tion­al. Con­text and facts tend to get lost in the telling. Re­peat­ing and not tak­ing for grant­ed the mes­sage of ten or more Olympic gold medals by the year 2024 is a crit­i­cal suc­cess fac­tor.

Sport will achieve big things in the com­ing years. Na­tion­al Sport Or­gan­i­sa­tions (NSO) and Na­tion­al Gov­ern­ing Bod­ies (NGB) are show­ing height­ened de­ter­mi­na­tion and a sense of ur­gency.

Those who are not alive to the op­por­tu­ni­ties will even­tu­al­ly come around. No one wants to be left be­hind.

But there is cause for great op­ti­mism. As the mes­sage that sport lead­ers need to re­ha­bil­i­tate them­selves away from the ad­dic­tion of de­pen­den­cy on state sup­port gains trac­tion, I con­fi­dent­ly pre­dict that sport will be bet­ter for it.

The TTOC is de­ter­mined to craft new ways and new prod­ucts and ser­vices to align Olympic Move­ment ob­jec­tives with na­tion­al pri­or­i­ties.

These are crit­i­cal times for Trinidad and To­ba­go.

But we be­lieve in the Olympic Move­ment that sport and Olymp­ism can help ad­dress the chal­lenges fac­ing our coun­try.

Our com­mit­ment to the cause is not con­di­tion­al on ap­proval, it is our mis­sion and pur­pose.

At the TTOC, we strive to find in­no­v­a­tive ways to max­imise re­source ef­f­i­cen­cy and ef­fec­tive­ness.

Get­ting it right is not a lux­u­ry, its an im­per­a­tive.

T&T will achieve great Olympic suc­cess. Now is the time to sup­port the dream.

Just so that those who may have for­got­ten or are not aware of what is the think­ing dri­ving ten or more Olympic gold medals by year 2024, see be­low:

10Golds24 aims to cul­ti­vate a sys­tem of ex­cel­lence that clar­i­fies the de­vel­op­ment path­way and per­for­mance man­age­ment sys­tem that holis­ti­cal­ly fos­ter, men­tor, nur­ture and de­vel­op Olympians and Olympic Cham­pi­ons.

Train­ing to be an Olympic cham­pi­on is a full time com­mit­ment that de­mands both dis­ci­pline and ded­i­ca­tion to main­tain com­pet­i­tive­ness and to win medals. Elite and high per­for­mance ath­letes com­pet­ing in in­di­vid­ual and team sports must ded­i­cate time, mon­ey, and en­er­gy to their ath­let­ic en­deav­ors.

Sig­nal­ing a new mind­set, a new at­ti­tude and a new ap­proach where the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee tar­gets the big goal and the big dream of ten Olympic gold medals by the year 2024.

Es­tab­lish­ing a change in cul­ture en­tails break­ing down bar­ri­ers with new and in­no­v­a­tive ap­proach­es. Thus, this ap­proach in­tends to sen­si­tise the na­tion about the re­al­i­ty that ex­ist with out Na­tion­al Ath­letes in an at­tempt to en­cour­age sup­port of our ath­letes on their jour­ney to ful­fill­ing the Olympic Dream.

Launched on 26 De­cem­ber 2014, the TTOC pres­i­dent par­tic­i­pat­ed in the 2015 T&T In­ter­na­tion­al Marathon to raise aware­ness on fund­ing for the Ath­lete Wel­fare and Prepa­ra­tion fund. The Fund is en­vi­sioned to be in­de­pen­dent, trans­par­ent, ac­count­able and non–gov­ern­men­tal.

Many of TTO Elite and High Per­for­mance ath­letes are not fi­nan­cial­ly well re­ward­ed and would not have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to reach their po­ten­tial with­out fi­nan­cial sup­port. Fi­nan­cial sup­port or the lack of it across the stages of an ath­lete's long term de­vel­op­ment have end­ed or com­pro­mised the dream of many tal­ent­ed young men and women.

The train­ing to com­pete and to win phas­es of an ath­lete's long-term de­vel­op­ment is par­tic­u­lar­ly crit­i­cal. As is what hap­pens af­ter their com­pet­i­tive life is over.

The aim of #10golds24 ath­lete wel­fare and prepa­ra­tion fund is to pro­vide fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to our na­tion's Olympic, Par­a­lympic and Com­mon­wealth Games ath­letes to en­able them to train, re­cov­er and com­pete. The fund aims to as­sist ath­letes in the fol­low­ing as­pects:

Di­rect sup­port (stipend) and out of pock­et ex­pense

Medal bonus

Health and Ac­ci­dent In­sur­ance

In­tern­ships with Cor­po­rate T&T to pre­pare for life af­ter elite sport

Life skills train­ing .

�2 Bri­an Lewis is the Pres­i­dent of the Olympic Com­mit­tee. The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the Olympic Com­mit­tee.