Bri­an Lewis, pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee has come in for prais­es for his work in pro­gress­ing and de­vel­op­ing sports lo­cal­ly.

This comes from Ja­son Fras­er, pres­i­dent of the T&T Wrestling As­so­ci­a­tion who told Guardian Me­dia Sports yes­ter­day he's been re­al­ly im­pressed with the work done by Lewis to date, as well as the work he con­tin­ues to do in his last term in of­fice.

Lewis, a for­mer sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the T&T Rug­by Foot­ball Union, has been the dri­ving force be­hind the 10GOLD24 ini­tia­tive, which ex­plains his de­sire for the coun­try's ath­letes to claim 10 gold medals at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France.

Apart from that Lewis, who earned the ti­tle as the 'Peo­ples Pres­i­dent' be­cause of his abil­i­ty to reach all in the sport­ing fra­ter­ni­ty, was al­so snapped up as leader of the Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tions of Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees (CANOC), a po­si­tion he still holds to­day.

Fras­er said, though Lewis' suc­cess­es are too many to men­tion, the work done by TTOC boss has pos­i­tive­ly im­pact­ed him at the sam­bo fed­er­a­tion, as well as at the Wrestling As­so­ci­a­tion.

Lewis' term at the helm of the Olympic com­mit­tee comes to an end in 2021, but Fras­er is al­ready call­ing on him to pat him­self on the back, out­lin­ing his ef­forts in chal­leng­ing the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to re­place guns with medals, as one of many worth­while ini­tia­tives.

Lewis, a for­mer Fa­ti­ma Col­lege stu­dent has al­so been cred­it­ed for his lead­ing role in pi­lot­ing pro­grammes such as Sports In­dus­try T&T Pro­gramme, Fu­ture is Fe­male, Marathon Walk, Hous­ing Pol­i­cy for ath­letes, Sports Mar­ket­ing Trans­for­ma­tion: and Wel­fare of Ath­letes, which high­light his ef­forts to gain Gov­ern­ment fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance for vet­er­an ath­letes.

How­ev­er one of his most in­flu­en­tial ini­tia­tives has been the hous­ing for ath­letes pro­gramme, which he said was an idea that can be ad­vanced un­der an Elite Ath­lete Hous­ing As­sis­tance Pro­gramme, say­ing rep­re­sent­ing T&T at the Olympic and World lev­el is na­tion­al du­ty and ser­vice.

"It is a de­c­la­ra­tion that should be mean­ing­ful with tan­gi­ble mea­sures put in place to sup­port such a de­c­la­ra­tion."

He said, "HDC hous­es for na­tion­al sports­men and women with a pri­or­i­ty on those who have rep­re­sent­ed T&T at Olympic and World lev­el in both team and in­di­vid­ual sports are in the opin­ion of the writer a pow­er­ful state­ment of in­tent that we are se­ri­ous about sup­port­ing our ath­letes in their quest for ex­cel­lence."

"There are na­tion­al ath­letes who have served this coun­try with dis­tinc­tion for five years or more who need as­sis­tance to ob­tain HDC hous­ing. Just as there is a pri­or­i­ty giv­en to mem­bers of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ser­vice, it is pro­posed that a sim­i­lar pol­i­cy is im­ple­ment­ed for na­tion­al sports­men and women who have giv­en sus­tained and mer­i­to­ri­ous ser­vice," Lewis stat­ed in a pre­vi­ous re­port.