Bri­an Lewis

When you be­lieve in some­thing you must stand your ground. As an ex­am­ple it is my un­wa­ver­ing be­lief that Trinidad and To­ba­go can achieve an Olympic medal tar­get of ten by the year 2024.

I be­lieve that with the right peo­ple, coach­ing and fund­ing we can win Olympic medals on a reg­u­lar and con­sis­tent ba­sis.

We have the tal­ent and po­ten­tial re­sid­ing here in TT.

Striv­ing for ex­cel­lence in sport re­quires first be­liev­ing that ex­cel­lence can be at­tained and the de­ter­mi­na­tion to stand your ground re­gard­less of the ob­sta­cles lack of sup­port or en­cour­age­ment. If you be­lieve in some­thing stand your ground.

We have to change the cul­ture that per­ceives and con­tin­ue to hold firm to the per­cep­tion that sport is a pas­time or recre­ation­al ac­tiv­i­ty on­ly.

As we strive to use sport as a tool to aid the so­ci­ety in ad­dress­ing and al­le­vi­at­ing so­ci­etal is­sues such as crime, obe­si­ty, a lack of ci­vil­i­ty and ethics and at risk be­hav­iour.

Ex­cel­lence is all en­com­pass­ing.

Stand­ing our ground for sport re­quires that all facets and di­men­sions of sport be ad­dressed and pro­mot­ed.

There are spe­cif­ic con­di­tions that must be met.

Sport shouldn't be a po­lit­i­cal foot­ball but hav­ing said that it is a strate­gic re­al­i­ty that sport is im­pact­ed by the po­lit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic, le­gal and so­ci­etal en­vi­ron­ment in which it op­er­ates.

There must be a clear and un­am­bigu­ous vi­sion, pol­i­cy, philo­soph­i­cal per­spec­tive and ac­tion plan for Olympic sports and the Olympic Games and this coun­try's par­tic­i­pa­tion, prepa­ra­tion and medal win­ning ob­jec­tives . Non Olympic sports, recre­ation­al sports , com­mu­ni­ty sports, school sports all re­quire at­ten­tion and an ac­tion plan.

In a mul­ti-cul­tur­al so­ci­ety such as Trinidad and To­ba­go our di­ver­si­ty is both a bless­ing and a curse- man­ag­ing the at times con­flict­ing in­ter­ests and dilem­mas is an ever present chal­lenge.

Sport has a crit­i­cal role to play in shap­ing and con­tribut­ing to the di­a­logue and de­vel­op­ment ini­tia­tives that will build a mod­ern T&T that is fit for pur­pose. There are many is­sues to dis­cuss.

Hu­man dig­ni­ty and equal­i­ty for all in­cludes those who par­tic­i­pate in sport and are sub­ject­ed to prej­u­dice, dis­crim­i­na­tion and un­equal treat­ment. The recog­ni­tion of the dig­ni­ty of hu­man be­ings and their rights and free­doms must be ac­knowl­edged and pro­tect­ed. Per­sons par­tic­i­pat­ing in sport shouldn't be dis­ad­van­taged or dis­crim­i­nat­ed against.

Per­sons who par­tic­i­pate in sport es­pe­cial­ly at the in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el should not be per­ceived as ex­pend­able or as sec­ond class cit­i­zens.

The dis­in­te­gra­tion of sport clubs mir­rors the de­struc­tion of our com­mu­ni­ties in the face of un­planned and ad hoc in­cur­sion of com­mer­cial­ism in­to res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ties.

A sus­tain­able sport in­dus­try is a fan­ta­sy if there isn't an eco­nom­ic, in­dus­try and trade pol­i­cy aimed at re­struc­tur­ing and trans­form­ing the lo­cal econ­o­my so that it fos­ters en­tre­pre­neurs, cre­ativ­i­ty and in­no­va­tion and risk tak­ing.

Lo­cal sport must cre­ate its own dri­ve, de­ter­mi­na­tion and will and first be­come self-suf­fi­cient in at­ti­tude, mind­set and think­ing.

On the field of play the dif­fer­ence be­tween great teams and good teams, great ath­letes and good ath­letes is the at­tribute of keep­ing the brain at­tuned to good habits when bones are aching and lungs burn­ing.

The same is re­quired of sport lead­ers, man­agers and ad­min­is­tra­tors.

When the pres­sure is on it's the abil­i­ty to stay fo­cused and stand your ground un­der pres­sure.

Sport as much as it needs the sup­port of Gov­ern­ment must not be­come a pris­on­er of the po­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment.

If on­ly for the sim­ple rea­son that sport tran­scends pol­i­tics.

�2 Bri­an Lewis is the Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee http://www.ttoc.org/. The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the TTOC.

?