Alia Atkinson still making waves after nearly 20 years in the pool

Certainly, as one of the most important Jamaican sportswoman of all time, Alia Atkinson has become the voice for those from a tiny island who just aren’t sure what the limits of their potential are. There are none.

Atkinson, at 32 years old, has had a longer career than most swimmers, still going long after many of the stars of yesteryear would have called it quits.

This isn’t to say Atkinson hasn’t failed, but her response to failing has made her, in the eyes of many Jamaicans, and even some outside of the island nation, a hero.

The swimmers first Olympics were in 2004 as a teenager and she competed in the 50-metre freestyle and the 100-metre breaststroke. It would take her a further four years before she finished 25th at the 2008 Olympics in the 200-metre breaststroke.

But she would not quit.

Atkinson, in between those Olympic performances, was honing her craft, working to become the best in the world.

She would set a Jamaican record in the 100-metre butterfly at the 2007 Pan America Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

And would continue to improve and make the world take notice, winning the 2010 NCAA Championships, swimming for Texas A&M.

She would do much better at the 2012 Olympics where she qualified for the final by winning a head-to-head race for the final position against Canadian rival Tera van Beilen. She would end up finishing fourth.

After years of toil, finally, success.

Atkinson became the first black woman to win a world swimming title and just the second to hold a world record when she equalled 100-metre breaststroke Short Course record in 2014. Atkinson equalled the record set by Rūta Meilutytė just a year earlier.

“It wasn’t just me getting the medal, it was more breaking down a barrier that I didn’t even know existed or I didn’t try to think existed because I was already trying to silence my own thoughts,” Atkinson had said a few years after having accomplished the historic feat.

In that historic 2014, Atkinson would also earn a silver in the 50-metre breaststroke and a bronze in the 100-metre breaststroke at the Commonwealth Games.

Atkinson had arrived.

Since that time, Atkinson has consistently been one of the world’s top breaststrokers.

But more than her exploits in the pool, has been Atkinson’s, almost stately response to being an ambassador for Jamaican women and for Jamaicans in general. In fact, it is her most solemn wish that her exploits serve the greater purpose saying something on the world stage about Jamaicans.

“To place Jamaica on the world map of swimming; to agitate for the improvement of the infrastructural support for swimming in Jamaica so as to be able to take it to the next level; and to realise my full potential for myself, my parents, and my country,” Atkinson has been quoted as saying in Dalea Bean’s book, Jamaican Women of Distinction.

For her work over the years, Atkinson has claimed Sportswoman of the Year in Jamaica on three occasions, 2014, 2016, and 2018.

Atkinson will very likely be headed to her fifth Olympic Games when the marquee event takes place in Tokyo, Japan later this year.