Olympic official urges

Lewis was referring to comment from national team coach Wim Rijsbergen that locally based players are not up to international level.

“Public negative comments of players are not the easiest things to deal with but the players must be able to move past this and rise to the challenge,” said Lewis.

He believes players must be the best they can be, maintain their self-belief and keep working hard.

Lewis suggested that the best revenge in life according to Les Brown is “massive success” and “love should be used to guide and not hate.”