Four-time Olympic medal­list Ato Boldon says ad­just­ments to Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy re­lat­ing to for­eign stu­dent en­rol­ment high­light the need for more in­dige­nous sys­tems of ath­lete de­vel­op­ment in T&T.

Draw­ing par­al­lels with a Caribbean neigh­bour to the North, Boldon said it was an op­por­tu­ni­ty to se­ri­ous­ly con­sid­er de­vel­op­ing this coun­try's own struc­tures around ath­let­ic de­vel­op­ment.

"I have been say­ing for years that I be­lieve we have to get more se­ri­ous about our younger kids, the high school lev­el and be­fore that," Boldon re­mind­ed. "Ja­maica is the ob­vi­ous ex­am­ple.

"Ja­maica got tired of the NCAA (Na­tion­al Col­le­giate Ath­let­ic As­so­ci­a­tion) sys­tem burn­ing out their tal­ent, and they de­cid­ed to form clubs. Our clubs have tra­di­tion­al­ly pro­duced quite a num­ber of our Olympic and World (Cham­pi­onship) medal­lists, for ex­am­ple, a Dar­rel Brown or a Je­hue Gor­don," Boldon said

"I think now we have to get a lot more se­ri­ous about home-grow­ing our ath­letes, I guess we can start send­ing our ath­letes to Ja­maica but that's just track and field, what about the oth­er sports?"

The 2025 Em­my Award win­ner was re­spond­ing to the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion to pause new stu­dent visa in­ter­views while it weighs re­quir­ing po­ten­tial stu­dents to un­der­go so­cial me­dia vet­ting as part of the ad­mis­sions process.

It means that as stu­dent-ath­letes pre­pare to make the move to join over 430,000 stu­dents at the 1,200 ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions across the USA's NCAA three di­vi­sions, their plans have hit a snag.

Boldon says the ad­min­is­tra­tion's ef­forts to add an­oth­er lay­er of scruti­ny to in­ter­na­tion­al stu­dent ap­pli­ca­tions can po­ten­tial­ly leave a vac­u­um in world sport.

"The cur­rent Olympic cham­pi­on in the 100 me­tres for women is Julien Al­fred," Boldon said in a phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia Sport on Wednes­day. "Look at what she has done for her na­tion, I don't know that that hap­pens with­out her go­ing to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas.

"I cer­tain­ly know that I am not an Olympic medal­list if I didn't go to UCLA and there's a ton of sto­ries like that."

Boldon re­marked that the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion's poli­cies run con­trary "to what made Amer­i­ca Amer­i­ca" and not­ed a stark re­al­i­ty as a re­sult.

"Any coun­try that has been de­pen­dent on the NCAA sys­tem de­vel­op­ing their tal­ent, those days may be over for the im­me­di­ate fu­ture," the NBC an­a­lyst warned. "Quite frankly, I've been to oth­er coun­tries, I don't know where else you can go and get the de­vel­op­ment that the NCAA sys­tem pro­vides.

"The NCAA has prob­a­bly pro­duced more Olympic medal­lists than any en­ti­ty you can point to, so this is a cri­sis in the mak­ing," Boldon said.

Ayan­na Hutchin­son-Brit­ton, a for­mer NCAA Di­vi­sion One stu­dent-ath­lete at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Neva­da in Las Ve­gas, says the ath­letes she's come in­to con­tact with are starved of in­for­ma­tion, which doesn't in­spire con­fi­dence.

"The in­for­ma­tion has on­ly re­cent­ly got­ten to the pub­lic, but know­ing that their po­ten­tial fu­ture op­por­tu­ni­ties may be af­fect­ed and every­thing is up in the air, there's a very good bit of ner­vous­ness and anx­i­ety across the board," Hutchin­son-Brit­ton said on Wednes­day.

"Every­thing is based on the kind­ness of the visa of­fi­cers and their hands are tied based on the rules and reg­u­la­tions com­ing out of the US Gov­ern­ment."

Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) pres­i­dent Merere Gon­za­les and at least one more Sec­ondary School ad­min­is­tra­tor say the lat­est de­vel­op­ments have cast a cloud over a time-ho­n­oured path­way for around 9,000 young foot­ballers.

Gon­za­les says the changes have the po­ten­tial to de­rail arrange­ments al­ready in progress and, like Hutchin­son-Brit­ton, wel­comes the op­por­tu­ni­ty to gain more clar­i­ty on the is­sue.