Shot putt com­peti­tor Cleopa­tra Borel-Brown con­tin­ued with the count­down to the start of the Lon­don 2012 Olympic Games last week with an ap­pear­ance at bpTT's Lunch & Learn ses­sion at the op­er­a­tions cen­tre at Isth­mus Court, Ga­le­o­ta.

An emo­tion­al Borel-Brown held cen­tre stage as she ex­plained the phi­los­o­phy that has led to her en­dur­ing ath­let­ic suc­cess.

"I grew up in Ma­yaro and this com­mu­ni­ty has al­ways pro­vid­ed the dri­ve and im­pe­tus for me to strive for ex­cel­lence. The bpTT core val­ues, such as courage, safe­ty and one team, have al­so spurred me on over the years, al­though I didn't re­alise it then.

"The courage to com­pete even when no one be­lieved in me, and the virtue of team­work through sup­port from many peo­ple, were al­ways es­sen­tial in­gre­di­ents in my pro­fes­sion­al life," Borel-Brown ex­plained.

She said prac­tis­ing these core val­ues on a dai­ly ba­sis had paved the way for her many ac­com­plish­ments, in­clud­ing com­pet­ing in three Olympic Games, be­ing the first fe­male medal­list for T&T at a Com­mon­wealth Games, win­ning sev­er­al Caribbean Cham­pi­onship medals, in­clud­ing two gold and be­ing named as T&T Sports­woman of the Year on three oc­ca­sions.

Borel-Brown in­ter­act­ed with the bpTT team and an­swered a num­ber of ques­tions about her train­ing rou­tine. She al­so au­to­graphed T-shirts mark­ing the We Are Con­querors lo­cal Olympic an­them, per­formed by Kes the Band, in sup­port of bpTT's Olympic and Par­a­lympic ini­tia­tive.