T&T cy­clist Quin­cy Alexan­der is a de­vout Hin­du but his re­li­gion hasn't on­ly helped the spir­i­tu­al strength of his life but al­so his sports ca­reer. It may sur­prise many that the afro-Trin­bag­on­ian ath­lete sub­scribes to a faith that is dom­i­nat­ed by East In­di­ans, but the mys­tery deep­ens even fur­ther.

His par­ents are Ro­man Catholic but it was the in­flu­ence of his late grand­moth­er that led him in the di­rec­tion of Hin­duism.

He told the Sun­day Guardian, "She died when I was eight years old but up un­til that time I had guid­ance with­in the prac­tice. I would have just fall­en back in­to Chris­tian­i­ty which is most­ly my par­ents."

A search for some­thing more in life forced the T&T cy­clist to take a turn to the faith of his grand­moth­er.

"As time went along I start­ed to look for some­thing a lot more deep­er, which could have plen­ty log­i­cal rea­son­ing to me and not just some­thing that's based on a book. I start­ed to seek and un­der­stand more and this is when my jour­ney in Sanatan Dhar­ma be­gan," Alexan­der said.

Al­though he and his par­ents are not of the same faith, they have not shied away from help­ing him ex­plore Hin­duism.

"My par­ents have al­ways been very open to me. They even sup­port me in the fast for Di­vali by not cook­ing any meat through­out the whole fast­ing pe­ri­od, so they are very sup­port­ive," he said.

But his faith has been more than an es­cape from world­ly things. It's been the fu­el that has kept his cy­cling ca­reer ped­alling amid its ob­sta­cles. In Feb­ru­ary this year, he threat­ened the T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion (TTCF) with le­gal ac­tion over con­stant omis­sion from the T&T team. His re­li­gion, he said, has helped him deal with such is­sues.

"I un­der­stand my dhar­ma (the na­ture of my re­al­i­ty) de­pends on me," he said.

"While there are chal­lenges in the sport, while there are in­di­vid­u­als that may try to keep you down at the end of the day, I am the one that de­ter­mines my des­tiny. Those types of thoughts have cer­tain­ly brought a more rigid and ro­bust mind­set, es­pe­cial­ly with the var­i­ous chal­lenges I have had this year with­in this sport."

Hin­duism has al­so helped Alexan­der de­vel­op a dif­fer­ent out­look on life.

He ex­plained, "It cer­tain­ly mag­ni­fies my views of life in gen­er­al. I un­der­stand that life is a three-di­men­sion­al phase which is our soul, our spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and our con­sciences. In the Bha­gavad Gi­ta, Lord Kr­ish­na spoke to us about not be­ing at­tached to the at­tach­ments of this life and when you re­al­ly look in-depth, that has so many dif­fer­ent mean­ings."

While he may be a dif­fer­ent face around tem­ples and mandirs, the T&T cy­clist says he has al­ways been wel­comed by oth­er devo­tees and his Gu­ru pun­dit Vish­nu Ma­haraj has been a ma­jor help in his faith for­ma­tion.

Said Alexan­der, "Most times it is with­in my own peo­ple who are to­tal­ly sur­prised be­cause of their own re­li­gious be­liefs. In terms of go­ing to the mandir, go­ing to the tem­ple, there is no dis­crim­i­na­tion. It's al­ways love. It's al­ways a wel­com­ing at­mos­phere."

He al­so lament­ed the fact that be­cause re­li­gion has so many Gods, it re­flects how peo­ple should be treat­ed on earth.

"There is no face to any re­li­gion. We can look to one of our ma­jor Gods which is Ma­hade­va, which is Lord Shi­va and even he is ras­ta. There is so much var­i­ous di­ver­si­ty among the var­i­ous Gods in Hin­duism that it is not sub­jec­tive to any par­tic­u­lar race. Any­one can prac­tice Hin­duism," he said.