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Alia Atkinson: Making history

We are honoring the 2019 International Women's Day and Women's History Month this week by highlighting three College of Liberal Arts women making history.

Part two of 2019 International Women’s Day series features Alia Atkinson — swimming world record holder and former student of the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences.

Read part one of this series.

Alia Atkinson ‘10, Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences former student, is setting world records.

Originally from Jamaica, Atkinson’s prestigious swimming career began long before she attended Texas A&M University. Atkinson competed in two Olympic competitions — the first in the 2004 Olympics swimming freestyle and breaststroke, and the second in 2008 Olympics where she finished 25th in the women’s 200m breaststroke. And that was just the beginning.

During her time at Texas A&M, Atkinson became an All-American and NCAA champion when she placed first in the 200m breaststroke. Soon after, she headed to the 2012 Olympics to compete in the 100m breaststroke and placed 4th.

Her record-breaking moments began at the 2014 Short Course World Championships in Doha, where she competed in the 50m and 100m breaststroke races. Her victory in the 100m race earned her the title of the Women’s 100m breaststroke world record-holder (short course), tied with Rūta Meilutytė. This World Championship win made her “the first black woman in history to win a world title in swimming, and Jamaica’s first gold swimming medal in the World Championships,” according to swimming news site SwimSwam.

Photo: SwimSwam

Atkinson continued on to the 2016 summer Olympics, reaching the final in the 100m breaststroke, and broke another world record that same year as she swam the 50m breaststroke in the World Cup in Tokyo. There she gained her second world-record holder title in women’s 50-metre breaststroke.

Only two years later, she did it again. Swimming in Budapest for the World Cup, she lowered her own mark and broke the 50m world record by swimming a 28.56 time — a record which stands today.

According to Swimmer World’s Magazine, Atkinson is the only Jamaican swimmer to hold a swimming world record. Her accomplishments accentuates her mission statement for her swimming career: “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 realize my full potential for myself, my parents, and my country.”

A four time Olympic competitor, two-time world record setter, and a leader for Central American and Caribbean female athletes — there is no denying that Alia Atkinson is making history.

By Alix P ’18