Atkinson returns to Roar for ISL Season 3
Published:Wednesday | June 23, 2021 | 12:08 AMDaniel Wheeler/ Staff Reporter
Olympian Alia Atkinson will return to the London Roar for the 2021 International Swimming League (ISL) season.
Roar’s General Manager Rob Woodhouse announced yesterday on Instagram that Atkinson, 32, is among the first five athletes that the team has protected ahead of the ISL’s third season of competition, which is set to begin in late August.
The other protected athletes returning to the team consist of 100m men’s freestyle Olympic champion Kyle Chalmers, women’s 50m backstroke short course (25m pool) world record holder Kira Toussaint, women’s freestyle relay Olympic champion Emma McKeon, and world championship individual medley bronze medallist Sydney Pickrem. The regular season is expected to take place this year in Naples, Italy, while the locations for the semi-finals and finals are still to be determined.
EYEING STRONG SEASON
Atkinson, who will participate in her fifth Olympic Games next month in Tokyo, said that she is looking forward to rejoining the team and is anticipating a strong season from the group.
“I’m so excited to be a part of the ISL season three and to be a part of the London Roar. Look out for us, we are going to do exciting things,” Atkinson said in an Instagram post.
Atkinson marked her competitive return with the Roar last year after months of inactivity caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Previously with Hungary’s Team Ion in the ISL’s inaugural season in 2019, her 2020 season with the Roar had strong performances, highlighted by her 100m breaststroke win in the semi-finals in a time of 1:02:66 minutes, the eighth-fastest time in the short course format. She currently shares the world record (1:02:36 minutes) with Lithuania’s Ruta Meilutyte and has seven of the 10 fastest times in the event in that format.
Woodhouse said that the decision to bring back those athletes first, including Atkinson, were easy decisions because of their pedigree. Ten other swimmers are expected to be protected for the Roar and Woodhouse says that they hope that they can capture the championships after falling short in the past two seasons.
“Let’s hope it’s third time lucky. We were very close to winning the title in year one. Last year we really had a little depleted team because the Australian (swimmers) were not able to make it because of COVID-19 and quarantine reasons. Having some of those Australians will add to our depth,” Woodhouse said. “For us, we are gaming to win the competition in our third season. So that’s our hope and I guess that is our expectation as well,” Woodhouse said.
London Roar made the finals of the first two seasons of the ISL, losing to Energy Standard of France in 2019 and the Cali Condors of the United States last year.