Sean Nero

Cham­pi­on 400m hur­dler Je­hue Gor­don achieved an­oth­er mile­stone on Sat­ur­day with the launch of a cologne ap­pro­pri­ate­ly ti­tled Am­bi­tion by Je­hue.

Ger­many com­pa­ny Sym­rise de­signed the fra­grance which was un­veiled at the res­i­dence of crick­eter Bri­an Lara on Chan­cel­lor Hill.

The sig­na­ture move by the vis­i­bly ner­vous ath­lete, when un­veil­ing the fan­tas­tic scent, rep­re­sent­ed a par­a­digm shift in the way the busi­ness of sport lo­cal­ly and re­gion­al­ly was viewed, caus­ing a pos­si­ble re­think of how suc­cess was mea­sured.

Be­fore Gor­don could un­veil the fra­grance, how­ev­er, he had to ad­mit an ear­li­er fail­ing that ul­ti­mate­ly guid­ed him back to this cru­cial and prac­ti­cal move.

"The idea to de­vel­op my per­son­al brand did not oc­cur over night. Mr Ed­ward Skin­ner, my lo­cal man­ag­er tossed the idea at me ap­prox­i­mate­ly one year ago, and I quick­ly re­ject­ed it. I didn't think it would have been pos­si­ble for me to em­bark on such a course at such an ear­ly point in my ca­reer. Mr Skin­ner on the oth­er hand, had a to­tal­ly dif­fer­ent view and was very per­sis­tent. He con­sis­tent­ly re­mind­ed me that I need­ed to be the 'trail­blaz­er' and to set the tone and stan­dard in the sports world there­by leav­ing be­hind a lega­cy. Hav­ing an en­thu­si­as­tic per­son­al­i­ty and giv­en that I val­ue and be­lieve in cre­ativ­i­ty and in­no­va­tion, Mr. Skin­ner was able to fi­nal­ly con­vince me and I was up for the chal­lenge. Re­sult­ing from just an idea, Am­bi­tion by Je­hue was born," he said.

Gor­don said, "Many peo­ple may ask why a cologne? The an­swer is a very sim­ple one. When the idea was pitched for me to de­vel­op a per­son­al brand I was ab­solute­ly sure that I want­ed my brand to be a true re­flec­tion of me; my pas­sion, my zeal for sport and my am­bi­tion to be suc­cess­ful in all as­pects of life. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, hav­ing trav­elled to var­i­ous coun­tries I al­ways made time for that one spe­cial place: Du­ty Free. Yes, I am very fond of sig­na­ture colognes so much so that the ex­cit­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty of hav­ing my very own could not be over­looked. Not on­ly would it be con­ve­nient for me to have my own cologne, but I want when peo­ple buy this prod­uct that they un­der­stand it's sig­nif­i­cance: that it rep­re­sents the fu­el in me, the sac­ri­fices I've made, the ob­sta­cles I have over­come, the en­er­gy and de­ter­mi­na­tion that I put in­to each day to achieve my goals."

The launch was at­tend­ed by Bri­an Lewis, pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee, Ephraim Ser­rette, pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ics Ad­min­is­tra­tions (NAAA) Olympic gold medal­ists Hase­ly Craw­ford and Keshorn Wal­cott, and West In­dies crick­eters Dwayne Bra­vo and Kieron Pol­lard.

Hav­ing re­cent­ly com­plet­ed his de­gree in Sports Man­age­ment, spe­cial­is­ing in hu­man re­sources and mar­ket­ing and grad­u­at­ing with First Class ho­n­ours at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus, Gor­don said he gained a pletho­ra of knowl­edge that mo­ti­vat­ed him fur­ther to put this busi­ness idea in­to mo­tion.

As an ath­lete, a grad­u­ate, and a young leader, Gor­don de­vel­oped a greater ap­pre­ci­a­tion for know­ing and valu­ing one's self, set­ting goals, and plan­ning as he aimed to build im­por­tant foun­da­tions. And, when put in­to ac­tion, he said, dreams come true. He urged fel­low sports­men and women to work hard, per­se­vere and more im­por­tant­ly be flex­i­ble.

"Do not re­main sub­ject­ed to just be­ing an ath­lete. Nev­er be afraid to step out of the box. The will­ing­ness to take risks is crit­i­cal to achiev­ing suc­cess and as such, it is there­fore im­per­a­tive that you sur­pass your own lim­its, nev­er quit and think of dif­fer­ent ways to win. To live the life you have al­ways dreamed of, you must be fu­elled by your am­bi­tion and work hard. Hav­ing tal­ent means noth­ing if you have no am­bi­tion be­hind it to work as­sid­u­ous­ly," Gor­don said.