“In the dust of de­feat as well as the lau­rels of vic­to­ry there is a glo­ry to be found if one has done their best” – Olympian Er­ic Lid­dell.

Was it just a flight of fan­cy or mere grandiose ‘ole’ talk?

Those ques­tions have been asked fol­low­ing T&T’s non-medal per­for­mance at the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed Paris 2024 Sum­mer Olympics in France. They are nec­es­sary ques­tions. What you learn from fail­ure is more im­por­tant than fail­ure it­self. What we must not do is give up or quit. It’s the lit­tle de­tails that make a huge dif­fer­ence. It’s the will­ing­ness to com­mit to con­tin­u­ing to learn and ac­quire knowl­edge be­cause you on­ly know what you know.

Re­gard­less of how you may feel about “#10Golds24,”  it is placed in the pub­lic dis­course. The ques­tion is: is it a de­sired na­tion­al ob­jec­tive—the win­ning of Olympic gold on a con­sis­tent ba­sis? And if we want to win Olympic gold on a con­sis­tent ba­sis, the im­por­tant ques­tion is not what, as a na­tion, we have to do but how we have to think.

At the time, as pres­i­dent and leader of the T&T Olympic Move­ment, my main ques­tion would have been: What is the core busi­ness of the Olympic Com­mit­tee? If the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) has ju­ris­dic­tion as del­e­gat­ed by the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) for the Olympics in T&T, Then the Olympics are the core busi­ness of the TTOC. And if the pin­na­cle achieve­ment in the Olympics is an Olympic gold medal, then what is the ul­ti­mate ac­count­abil­i­ty for the TTOC giv­en that elite and Olympic sport is a re­sults busi­ness?

The dream of be­ing an Olympic and Par­a­lympic cham­pi­on cap­tured the imag­i­na­tion and am­bi­tion of some ath­letes. That was their dream. They had an in­ner hunger and de­sire. As a con­se­quence, it was im­por­tant for the TTOC to cre­ate a safe space for them to pur­sue their Olympic dream.

I have asked my­self: Was #10Golds24 (10-year hori­zon) un­re­al­is­tic? Did the im­ple­men­ta­tion of medal bonus­es, tar­get­ed fund­ing, the Michael John­son High Per­for­mance Col­lab­o­ra­tion, the ath­lete wel­fare and prepa­ra­tion fund, and now the “Go­ing 4 Gold” Foun­da­tion go far enough? Were they ef­fec­tive? Was the es­tab­lish­ment of an ath­lete ser­vice and mar­ket­ing de­part­ment in TTOC salient to the ob­jec­tive of go­ing for gold?

In striv­ing to cre­ate an Olympic gold medal cul­ture, the fo­cus had to be on what to think as the an­tecedent to what to do. To look at go­ing for Olympic gold holis­ti­cal­ly, a broad­er set of salient fea­tures and causal re­la­tion­ships had to be con­sid­ered. It be­came more com­plex than think­ing in a sim­plis­tic, con­ven­tion­al, lin­ear, or se­quen­tial way.

One area that need­ed more at­ten­tion was the con­cept of so­cio-emo­tion­al learn­ing and mind­ful­ness.

In the com­ing days, there will be de­bates and dis­cus­sions.

How­ev­er, let us not for­get or be dis­re­spect­ful of the Team TTO Par­a­lympic del­e­ga­tion that will rep­re­sent the twin is­land re­pub­lic at the Paris 2024 Par­a­lympic Games from Au­gust 28 to Sep­tem­ber 8. The team is com­posed of Chef de Mis­sion Micky Ruben, Akeem Stew­art, an ath­lete, and Wade Franklin, a coach. It’s their turn; sup­port them. 

The pan ver­sion of the na­tion­al an­them may still be heard in Paris. Par­a­lympic TT pres­i­dent Sud­hir Rames­sar has worked dili­gent­ly to en­sure that TeamT­TO is rep­re­sent­ed in Paris this sum­mer.

I wish them every suc­cess in their quest to win T&T Par­a­lympic gold.

“I have failed over and over in my life. And that is why I suc­ceed”—Michael Jor­dan.

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.