"The word dis­ci­pline is my in­spi­ra­tion. I want to be­come so fo­cused in life that I am al­ways on top of my game." These were the words of Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go's (UTT) sailor, An­drew Lewis. The sen­sa­tion­al 21-year-old, in Jan­u­ary, qual­i­fied for the 2011 Pan Amer­i­can Games to be held lat­er this year. His per­for­mance at the Rolex Mi­a­mi OCR in Jan­u­ary was in­deed a note­wor­thy one. Lewis made it past the first round and was one of four com­peti­tors fight­ing for three spots in the Pan Amer­i­can Games in the Laser class. He was able to out­class the com­pe­ti­tion and se­cure his spot for Mex­i­co. Not on­ly did he se­cure his spot, but he fin­ished 37th out of 104 com­peti­tors, and has moved his world rank­ing up from 684th to 340th out of 989 com­peti­tors in the world.

Lewis' pas­sion for the sport didn't just start at UTT, as he dis­closed "it start­ed way be­fore that". He told gie Mag­a­zine, "When I was 7 years old my dad sent me to a sail­ing camp where I was first in­tro­duced to the sport. How­ev­er, com­ing from a fam­i­ly that loves to sail, I have been on sail­boats since the day I was born; back then, my mom nick­named me "Wa­ter Ba­by." Where does a guy like Lewis get his in­spi­ra­tion? Posed with this ques­tion, Lewis, who is pur­su­ing his BSc Sports Stud­ies and Busi­ness, stat­ed, "Us­ain Bolt has in­spired me a lot; not just his raw tal­ent, but the way he con­ducts him­self; he seems so gen­uine and ground­ed."

A schol­ar­ship re­cip­i­ent, Lewis knows ex­act­ly what he wants in life. Asked about his schol­ar­ship, the young but de­ter­mined ath­lete in­di­cat­ed that due to his com­pe­ti­tion sched­ule, he has "de­ferred stud­ies to pre­pare for the 2012 Lon­don Olympic Games, so that I can put all my en­er­gies in­to mak­ing my coun­try proud. I will re­turn to my stud­ies af­ter the Games." Lewis' next big com­pe­ti­tion is the Se­maine Olympique Fran­caise in France from April 24th to 30th, 2011 (you can check out An­drew Lewis' Face­book fan page to see his full sched­ule of com­pe­ti­tion events for the 2011 sea­son). Ques­tioned about how he feels go­ing in­to this com­pe­ti­tion, the 'Wa­ter Ba­by' in­sist­ed "I feel re­al­ly con­fi­dent go­ing in­to this event. I am hop­ing to have a good race and im­prove my World rank­ing even fur­ther.

Over the last eight months, I have re­al­ly in­creased the in­ten­si­ty of my train­ing ses­sions and the re­sults are be­gin­ning to show. Right now the goal is to im­prove fur­ther, so that I can move one step clos­er to com­pet­ing and medalling at the 2012 Lon­don Olympic Games." The as­tound­ing ath­lete, who will turn 22 on No­vem­ber 30th, has quite a hec­tic sched­ule. Be­sides at­tend­ing two-hour fit­ness train­ing ses­sions from as ear­ly as 6am and sail­ing from 10am to 2pm, Lewis still finds time (and en­er­gy) to fit in work­ing out at the gym and do­ing yo­ga. What does he do to re­lax? He dis­closed "When I'm at home (in Trinidad), I go "down the is­lands."

So what does sail­ing, as a sport, have to of­fer? Lewis told gie Mag­a­zine, "Com­pet­ing means re­al­ly hav­ing a love for the sport be­cause it (com­pet­ing) is go­ing to re­quire one to make a lot of sac­ri­fices, be­come ex­treme­ly dis­ci­plined and emo­tion­al­ly tough to deal with the dis­ap­point­ments and hur­dles along the way. Hav­ing said that, it is al­so a lot of fun, I get to spend a lot of time out on the wa­ter and sail­ing has giv­en me the op­por­tu­ni­ty to rep­re­sent my coun­try, sweet Trinidad and To­ba­go, vis­it many coun­tries, ex­pe­ri­ence the cul­ture of oth­ers and make new friends around the globe."

This young, de­ter­mined ath­lete has a lot to of­fer. When asked where he sees him­self in the fu­ture Lewis dis­closed, "In the near fu­ture, I plan on be­com­ing an Olympic Gold Medal­list, as well as fin­ish­ing my un­der­grad­u­ate de­grees in Sports Stud­ies and Busi­ness." The 'Wa­ter Ba­by' will al­so com­pete in Perth, Aus­tralia, for a spot in the 2012 Lon­don Olympics. Ac­cord­ing to UTT, "With his cur­rent form and per­for­mance, as well as the con­tin­ued guid­ance from his coach­es, there is no doubt that An­drew Lewis is go­ing to be Trinidad and To­ba­go's first sailor at the Olympic Games."

Here is a list of An­drew Lewis' ac­com­plish­ments from 2003 to 2010

Trinidad & To­ba­go

• Na­tion­al Cham­pi­on Op­ti­mist 2003, 2004

• 2nd Place 2002, 1st Place 2003, 1st Place 2004 in the Guardian Hold­ings

• In­ter­na­tion­al Re­gat­ta in op­ti­mist, 1st Place 2006, 1st Place 2007 Laser

• Ra­di­al Na­tion­al Rank­ing and Guardian Hold­ings In­ter­na­tion­al Re­gat­ta.

• Na­tion­al Cham­pi­on 2009, 2010 Laser stan­dard

Ar­genti­na

• 2008 Laser Ra­di­al South Amer­i­can Cham­pi­onship 11th

• 2008 Laser Full South Amer­i­can Cham­pi­onship 31st

Aru­ba

• 4th Over­all in Splash Boat

Aus­tralia

• 2008 Laser Full Worlds

• 2009 Emerg­ing Na­tions Train­ing Camp Perth

• 2010 Emerg­ing Na­tions Train­ing Camp Perth

Bar­ba­dos

•Caribbean Dingy Cham­pi­on in Op­ti­mist 2005

Bermu­da

•2002 North Amer­i­cans Cham­pi­onship 29th Over­all

British Vir­gin Is­lands

•2nd IC 24 In­ter­na­tion­al Re­gat­ta

Cana­da

•2007 ISAF Youth worlds

Chile

• 2004 South Amer­i­can Cham­pi­onship 31st Over­all

Chi­na

•Pre Olympic Event 2007 25th Over­all (Sec­ond in one race)

Ecuador

• 2004 Op­ti­mist World Cham­pi­onship 38th out of 228 Sailors

• 2006 Laser Ra­di­al South Amer­i­can Cham­pi­onship 9th

• 2006 Laser Ra­di­al South Amer­i­can Cham­pi­onship 2nd Un­der 19

Eng­land

• 2010 Sail for Gold Re­gat­ta

• 2010 Laser Worlds Hayling Is­land

Grena­da

• 2002: 1st Over­all Grena­da 1st In­ter­na­tion­al Op­ti­mist Re­gat­ta

Hol­land

• 2007 Laser Ra­di­al World Cham­pi­onship 7th in Sil­ver fleet

Mar­tinique

• 2003: 22nd Un­der 12 Op­ti­mist

• 2004: 3rd Un­der 12 Op­ti­mist

• 2005: 2nd Over­all Op­ti­mist

• 2007: 2nd Over­all Laser

• 2004: Caribbean Dinghy Cham­pi­on in Op­ti­mist 2004

Mex­i­co

• 2003 North Amer­i­cans Cham­pi­onship 19th

New Zealand

•2008 Laser Ra­di­al Men's Worlds 30th of 70

Pe­ru

• 2003 Pe­ru Na­tion­al Cham­pi­onship 7th

• 2004 Pe­ru Na­tion­al Cham­pi­onship 5th

Puer­to Ri­co

• 2003 3rd Op­ti­mist Over­all

• 2004 3rd Op­ti­mist Over­all

• 2006 3rd Laser Ra­di­al Over­all

• 2010 Cen­tral Amer­i­can Games 11th

Sin­ga­pore

• Sin­ga­pore Na­tion­al Cham­pi­onship 7th

Las Pal­mas de Gran Ca­narias - Spain

• 2003 Op­ti­mist World Cham­pi­onship

Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca

• Mi­a­mi 2001, 2002, 2003 Or­ange Bowl In­ter­na­tion­al Re­gat­ta

• Boston 2001 Mid Win­ters

• Cal­i­for­nia 2006 Laser Ra­di­al Worlds

• Texas 2002 Op­ti­mist World Cham­pi­onship/ 2004 Op­ti­mist World

Cham­pi­onship

Uruguay

• 2003 South Amer­i­can Cham­pi­onship 7869794

US Vir­gin Is­lands

• 2nd Over­all