"So close, but his­to­ry made," said Ax­el Brown.

In this coun­try's first-ever ap­pear­ance at the four-man In­ter­na­tion­al Bob­sleigh and Skele­ton Fed­er­a­tion (IB­SF) World Cup, the T&T quar­tet just missed out on mak­ing the fi­nal round af­ter plac­ing 21st in heat one at the Olympia Bob Run St Moritz-Cele­ri­na in Switzer­land on Sun­day.

T&T's Ax­el Brown, De Aun­dre John, Sha­keel John and Xaver­ri Williams were the 23rd and fi­nal team to hit the track. Their time of one minute and 06.25 sec­onds (1:06.25) was just out­side of the 20th-placed Licht­en­stein team who oc­cu­pied the fi­nal qual­i­fy­ing spot with a clock­ing of 1:06.07.

The jour­ney of the Team TTO bob­sleigh and skele­ton pro­gramme in re­cent times is a note­wor­thy ex­am­ple of care­ful plan­ning and a clear strate­gic un­der­stand­ing of the op­er­at­ing en­vi­ron­ment.

De­served praise must be giv­en to Ax­el, who took over the man­tle from T&T bob­sleigh pi­o­neer Gre­go­ry Sun, who start­ed the win­ter sports pro­gramme.

Ax­el in his un­wa­ver­ing ef­fort to keep the bob­sleigh and skele­ton pro­gramme pro­gress­ing is un­re­lent­ing and de­ter­mined. His quest and vi­sion for Team TTO win­ter sport ex­cel­lence is un­com­pro­mis­ing. He is some­one who I en­joy ex­chang­ing ideas with. Ax­el isn't in­to medi­oc­rity. He is ful­ly aware of the chal­lenges and ob­sta­cles he faces and will con­tin­ue to face.

Brown in an in­ter­view said: "T&T has meant op­por­tu­ni­ty to me. My child­hood dream has come true, thanks to T&T. My en­tire life’s work is down to my con­nec­tion to T&T."

In many ways, the cur­rent T&T bob­sleigh and skele­ton pro­gramme is a mod­el that most of our Olympic sports may need to con­sid­er. Not every­thing will work in oth­er sports but it's the will­ing­ness to in­no­vate, to look for so­lu­tions even where there may be re­source im­ped­i­ments.

In striv­ing for ex­cel­lence, the re­lent­less pur­suit of it can be very de­mand­ing and as a re­sult, there will al­ways be those who will be dis­ap­point­ed and un­hap­py. How­ev­er, dis­ap­point­ment and un­hap­pi­ness in the con­text of striv­ing to be a cham­pi­on can be mo­ti­va­tion­al. It's not an ex­cuse to give up or quit. There are those who do less with more but that can't be said about Ax­el and his group, who are do­ing more with less.

With his­to­ry now made, one can le­git­i­mate­ly an­tic­i­pate the T&T bob­sleigh and skele­ton pro­gramme will con­tin­ue to grow.

There are a num­ber of op­por­tu­ni­ties in what may be con­sid­ered for Team TTO's non-tra­di­tion­al In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC)-recog­nised sports and dis­ci­plines, that present T&T with op­por­tu­ni­ties for growth. It will re­quire com­ing out of our com­fort zone. I have said it be­fore and will con­tin­ue to say it. We need to ex­plore beach and sand, ur­ban, win­ter and es­ports op­por­tu­ni­ties with en­hanced strate­gic in­tent and fo­cus.

We must plan now for the next gen­er­a­tion and in­spire the cur­rent gen­er­a­tion of youth, while at the same time seek­ing out growth op­por­tu­ni­ties for new rev­enue streams.

For sure in the com­ing months, we will deep dive in­to all the im­por­tant and nec­es­sary top­ics.

This week the fo­cus is on fine-tun­ing all as­pects of Sun­day's "Goin4Gold" Walk. Edi­tion num­ber 11.

A re­minder the pur­pose of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) Gold Foun­da­tion walk is to build aware­ness and fund-rais­ing. It can be said to be about help­ing Olympians build bet­ter fi­nan­cial fu­tures. It seeks to pro­vide trans­for­ma­tive in­vest­ments and eco­nom­ic dig­ni­ty for the youth and young peo­ple who as­pire to win Olympic gold.

For any­one who may de­cide last minute that they wish to join the walk. Vis­it TTOC Olympic House at 104 Wood­ford Street, Port-of-Spain.

If you aren't ready for the 26.2-mile chal­lenge, you can join at any point along the way that is with­in your com­fort zone.

Ed­i­tor’s note: The views ex­pressed in the pre­ced­ing ar­ti­cle are sole­ly those of the au­thor and do not re­flect the views of any or­gan­i­sa­tion in which he is a stake­hold­er.