Bri­an Lewis

The his­tor­i­cal le­git­i­ma­cy and rich her­itage of the sport­ing spir­it must be kept alive.To do so re­quires a pro­found trans­for­ma­tion in the process of repo­si­tion­ing sport. Sport lead­ers have the se­ri­ous re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect and har­ness the unique her­itage and tra­di­tions while pur­su­ing the chal­lenge of in­te­grat­ing sport with­in con­tem­po­rary so­ci­ety. It re­quires strik­ing the right bal­ance be­tween per­pet­u­at­ing tra­di­tion while at the same time mod­ernising sport gov­er­nance and man­age­ment.

Sport has ex­tend­ed its hori­zons and has ben­e­fit­ted from the con­sid­er­able rev­enue gen­er­at­ed by its un­doubt­ed pop­u­lar­i­ty. Sport lead­ers have an enor­mous fid­u­cary oblig­a­tion, du­ty and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty­To mar­shall your tal­ent, joy, pas­sion for the sport of your choice and just give it your all is the core of the sport­ing spir­it. A de­sire to be ex­cep­tion­al makes cham­pi­ons think dif­fer­ent­ly from the way most peo­ple think. But there is a sim­plic­i­ty to it all. Do­ing your best with what you have.

The ideas peo­ple choose to have about them­selves de­ter­mine the life they lead.In Lau­sanne, the Olympic cap­i­tal of the world, the re­cent days have been a pe­ri­od of in­tro­spec­tion com­ing on the heels of the Fi­fa scan­dal. Lau­sanne hosts over 50 in­ter­na­tion­al sports fed­er­a­tions and or­gan­is­tions.The As­so­ci­a­tion of Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees (ANOC) Com­mis­sion meet­ings and the in­au­gu­ra­tion of ANOC's head­quar­ters were dom­i­nat­ed by the FI­FA con­ver­sa­tions.

The re­sponse to the neg­a­tiv­i­ty has been one of de­ter­mi­na­tion to over­come the sit­u­a­tion. The Olympic Move­ment, hav­ing come through the Salt Lake Bribery scan­dal, knows what needs to be done.Life is a col­lec­tion of ex­pe­ri­ences. Every set­back, every neg­a­tive ex­pe­ri­ence makes you stronger. Its one of a num­ber of life lessons you learn from an in­volve­ment in sport.

Sport teach­es you to be mo­ti­vat­ed and in­spired as you strive to de­vel­op and im­prove your­self.Edgar Davids said learn­ing and ex­pe­ri­enc­ing that every in­jury you come back from makes you stronger. In the process of heal­ing you re­dis­cov­er your­self. You have to be men­tal­ly strong to fight your way back in­to a team af­ter an in­jury. To be suc­cess­ful you have to in­vest in your suc­cess and give it your all every sin­gle day.

Many of the things that are im­por­tant in sport are im­por­tant in oth­er ar­eas of life.The FI­FA scan­dal is an op­por­tu­ni­ty not on­ly for foot­ball but all of world sport to re­flect and grow and learn from the ex­pe­ri­ence.Cham­pi­ons don't let set­backs, ob­sta­cles and mis­takes de­rail their fo­cus.Striv­ing for suc­cess is no less a laud­able ob­jec­tive sim­ply be­cause of a ma­jor high pro­file de­ba­cle and em­bar­rass­ment.

Sport is de­vel­op­ing all the time. Bet­ter ad­min­is­tra­tors. Bet­ter coach­es. Bet­ter ath­letes. Bet­ter sport.The ques­tion is are we do­ing every thing pos­si­ble and is what were do­ing now the right way to make suc­cess hap­pen? Un­less you iden­ti­fy the things that bring re­al ben­e­fit a lot of time can be wast­ed in meet­ings and dis­cus­sions.

Think not in terms of mis­takes but so­lu­tions. Im­prove­ment is an on­go­ing fo­cus.Sports cred­i­bil­i­ty is un­der at­tack. De­fend­ing sport re­quires a re fo­cus­ing on the val­ues of sport and the sport­ing spir­it. This aware­ness has to be­gin with na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al sport Fed­er­a­tions and or­ga­ni­za­tions.Some where along the way the sport­ing spir­it has gone out of the heart of many who were ex­pect­ed to hold close to their bo­som the best in­ter­est of sport.

Sport Mat­ters. It is im­por­tant that sport lead­ers make sense of the non­sense.Bri­an Lewis is the Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee. The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the Olympic Com­mit­tee.Sup­port #10 Golds24 Ath­lete Wel­fare and Prepa­ra­tion Fund. Make your do­na­tions to any branch of Sco­tia­bank ac­count num­ber 171188. Share the Olympic Dream.