Bri­an Lewis

We must plan long term if we are se­ri­ous about mak­ing a mark in world sport.

The con­sis­tent suc­cess that Trinidad and To­ba­go so dear­ly crave and de­sire will not hap­pen be­cause we wish it. Not on­ly must there be a long term plan but with it we must have dis­ci­pline and pa­tience.

To be the great­est of all time, to be an Olympic cham­pi­on is an undis­tilled pas­sion for thou­sands of sports­men and women around the world. Here in T&T, we do have sports­men and women who car­ry dreams of great­ness in their hearts.

Even as I made the an­nounce­ment 16 months ago that our Olympic tar­get is 10 or more gold medals by 2024, there were no il­lu­sions that such a de­c­la­ra­tion would meet with unan­i­mous ac­cep­tance. There would be vary­ing re­spons­es. Pos­i­tive, neg­a­tive, scorn­ful or dis­mis­sive. It didn't re­al­ly mat­ter. Noth­ing can be achieved un­less it is first spo­ken.

Striv­ing for ex­cel­lence is a core Olympic val­ue.

An Olympic gold medal has far deep­er sig­nif­i­cance than just the trap­pings and fi­nan­cial re­wards and the adu­la­tion.

Win­ning an Olympic gold medal and be­com­ing a cham­pi­on is a process, at­ti­tude and mind­set.

Luck? Des­tiny? Pur­pose?

There are many opin­ions based on in­di­vid­ual per­spec­tives and ex­pe­ri­ences.

Love it, hate it, em­brace it or re­sent it.

Be­ing an Olympic cham­pi­on has been a cher­ished achieve­ment for over 2000 years.

Myth, truth, leg­end or mere tall tales–the pur­suit of Olympic glo­ry and vic­to­ry has al­ways gone hand in hand with pro­duc­ing de­cent ho­n­ourable men and women who are deeply and un­wa­ver­ing pa­tri­ot­ic.

The quest and en­dur­ing ro­man­ti­cism of an Olympic gold medal has surged deep with­in the hu­man psy­che a stir­ring for Olympic gold, it is the ul­ti­mate achieve­ment for many sports­men and women. The dream and vi­sion of stand­ing on the top of the Olympic podi­um with the gold medal around your neck and hear­ing your coun­try's na­tion­al an­them play and watch­ing the na­tion­al flag rais­ing is some­thing that words can­not de­scribe. Not even mon­ey can ad­e­quate­ly repli­cate or rep­re­sent the emo­tions of such an ex­pe­ri­ence. Price­less and in­valu­able mem­o­ries.

Last week I at­tend­ed along with oth­er pres­i­dents from var­i­ous Caribbean na­tion­al Olympic com­mit­tees a Rio 2016 prepa­ra­tion fo­rum host­ed by Car­los Nuz­man, pres­i­dent of the Brazil Olympic Com­mit­tee.

Brazil shared their vi­sion for Rio 2016 and be­yond. Their as­pi­ra­tion and in­ten­tion is to fin­ish in the top 10 of the Rio 2016 medal count.

Their strate­gic map and vi­sion has been many years in the mak­ing. No mat­ter the stum­bles or fail­ures, the Brazil Olympic Com­mit­tee is fo­cused on achiev­ing their tar­get.

At this par­tic­u­lar point in time, they have around 700 ath­letes in their Rio 2016 pro­gramme. Their ex­pec­ta­tion is that just around 400 will be se­lect­ed for Rio 2016.

There will al­ways be ar­gu­ments sur­round­ing the so­cial is­sues in Brazil. But it is un­de­ni­able that sport plays a sig­nif­i­cant role.

Olympic gold medals don't guar­an­tee so­cial jus­tice or a more eq­ui­table dis­tri­b­u­tion of na­tion­al wealth.

But as many ath­letes in Brazil set sight and fo­cus on Rio 2016. The Olympic Games is a sym­bol of their coun­try's ef­fort to achieve its full po­ten­tial.

Here, our present and fu­ture Olympians are just as de­ter­mined and fo­cused on achiev­ing their best in Rio 2016 and be­yond.

We may not have the re­sources of a Brazil but I have no doubt that we can match any coun­try in re­spect of de­ter­mi­na­tion and will pow­er.

Rio 2016 is very much in fo­cus and on the radar.

Last week's vis­it to Rio as a guest of both the Brazil Olympic Com­mit­tee and the Rio 2016 Or­ga­niz­ing Com­mit­tee was a time­ly re­minder that the mar­gin for er­ror is ra­zor thin.

Rio is in a race against time but they aren't alone. Many oth­er coun­tries will them­selves be leav­ing no stone un­turned in the push for Olympic glo­ry.

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