Kern sets his sights on Olympics
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
A FORRES personal trainer and ex-Royal Marine has set himself his next goal as he hopes to star in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics for Trinidad and Tobago.
Kern Toussaint (34) was short of a challenge after leaving the Navy so decided to try his hand at a new sport.
Since Easter this year, he has taken up rowing and is aiming to inspire people back in his home country.
The health and fitness instructor took a leap of faith moving from Trinidad to the UK around 10 years ago but at first things didn’t run as smoothly as he planned.
Kern said: “I came with the plan of studying something within the health and fitness industry and the thing that came up at the time was physiotherapy so I had to start off as a massage therapist.
Touss the Movement on Facebook
“I began generating some clients and then the recession happened, so I lost a lot of my customer base, that’s how I ended up in the Navy. I needed some stability because I wasn’t getting much income.
“It was a really challenging time. I didn’t know what to expect. It was like a leap of faith in some ways.
“I took all of my savings out of the bank at home and just moved. It only took about a few weeks before I lost all of those savings on food and living expenses.
“I just wanted to do something to change a culture and to change my next generation because I grew up seeing so many family, friends and loved ones succumbing to lifestyle diseases and it impacted on me massively.
“I thought to myself I want to make some different choices and be a role model for others.”
After spending five years in the Royal Navy and serving on HMS Edinburgh, Kern wanted to set himself a new goal.
He said: “I have always been into a lot of high level sports especially since being in the Navy. I was thinking what can I get into when I leave because I wanted to continue a lot of sporting disciplines and I wanted to keep competing.
“I had three sports in mind, either rowing, long jump or bobsleigh.
“When I was in the Navy there was an opportunity to go to the team GB bobsleigh open trial but my warship at the time was sailing so I didn’t get the chance to go.
“After I left, I had been calling around looking for places to train for the track and field team to do long jump but that didn’t happen either, so someone suggested that I started rowing.”
The Olympic hopeful didn’t have any idea how to get into the sport, until one of his clients
guided him in the right direction.
“I had no means and I had no idea how to go about doing it,” said Kern.
“One of my clients overheard that I was interested in rowing and she gave me some suggestions to go and see some of the clubs in Aberdeen. I went there a couple of times and one of the coaches put me onto Inverness and things started falling into place from there.
“It is really good, but my Achilles heel is the cold weather, otherwise I enjoy it.”
Kern wants to raise awareness of the sport for smaller nations, as well as inspiring people in Trinidad to try something different.
He believes making the Olympics would mean more to them than it would to him personally.
“You don’t see the smaller countries on the podium for rowing so I am hoping to use it as a platform to inspire others because when you set a goal it shouldn’t be something that you can easily attain.
“I see rowing as the goal I set, and the ultimate goal of winning a gold medal in the Olympics, but it is more about the journey in between.”
Trinidad and Tobago had their first ever rower at the Olympics in Rio this year as 39-year-old Felice Chow represented the country – but she lives and trains in America.
Kern has been given the opportunity to meet with some of the top coaches in Scotland and has received tips from fellow Inverness Rowing Club member Alan Sinclair, who represented Team GB in Rio.
He added: “I think it will give a lot of the younger generation back home a little bit of inspiration that there are other things that they can do.
“Coming from a country like Trinidad, the people are very strong minded but it takes someone to install a lot of belief into the younger generation and to let them know that they can grow out of their circumstances.
“I didn’t have any role models like that.
“It will mean a lot more to the people around me for me to make the Olympics because it is about giving people hope and inspiring those who look up to me.”
Kern has been documenting his journey to his friends and family back in Trinidad via video blogs and has had a positive response to the updates.
He said: “I try to share as much as possible with people. I have been getting good feedback from my videos, I think that it is making an impact.
“The thing that struck me the most is a friend of mine that I went to school with sent me a message. He was shot in the spine and was crippled. He said that he watches my videos everyday and it gives him a lot of hope to carry on.
“It really touched me because I didn’t know that anyone was even looking at them.
“That is why I keep setting bigger and bigger goals because people get inspired by anything that any of us do.”
Kern admits that he doesn’t yet know all of the steps in his Olympic journey but believes he is heading in the right direction.
“Every time I set myself a goal for something I have never known all the steps but I have always had the feeling that I could do it so I trust myself.”
