Time and time again, Jamaicans have found reason to take heart and inspiration from the example of champion swimmer Miss Alia Atkinson.

The nation has been inspired not just as a result of Miss Atkinson’s successes, but also by her determination and courage to fight back from bitter disappointment.

There was sadness and commiseration when she placed last in the final of the 100m breaststroke at the Rio Olympics in August after entering that race among the favourites for a medal.

There would have been sympathy and understanding had she wilted after that experience. The sad truth is that many people would have simply given up on swimming and pushed on with their lives down other paths.

Not Miss Atkinson. Philosophically categorising the 2016 Olympic failure as being the result of a “bad day”, she has pressed on to make 2016 – in her own words – her best “overall” and most consistent season.

Indeed, it seems that Olympic setback drove her to work harder and to be a stronger competitor.

In October, Miss Atkinson set a new world record in the 50m short course breaststroke, completing the event in 28.64 seconds at the FINA/airweave Swimming World Cup in Tokyo, Japan.

And at the FINA World Short Course Championships in Canada in November she won gold, silver, and bronze medals.

While she remains uncertain as to why she failed in Rio, Miss Atkinson refuses to be bogged down by that experience. Instead, she says her successes and failures have taught her valuable lessons.

Among those lessons being that “even if all the things line up for you, you still have to fight for what you get” and further that as human beings we need to learn to be “satisfied” with what we have after working honestly and hard to get it.

Miss Atkinson, now 28, has had a long career as an international swimmer since making Jamaica’s Olympic swimming team in her mid-teens in Athens 2004.

In the years since, she has very probably done more than any other in promoting swimming as a sport among Jamaicans and in confounding the long-held theory that because of body type, black people are less likely to do well in the pool compared to other racial groups.

Her successes have included a surprise fourth place in the 100m breaststroke in the London Olympics of 2012. At the Short Course World Championship at Doha in 2014 Miss Atkinson became the first black woman to win a world title in swimming, taking the 100m breaststroke in record-equalling time.

We feel sure that for as long as Miss Atkinson has the drive and desire she will continue to excel competitively in the pool. But she should know that even if she never wins another title, she has done much to make her country and the global swimming fraternity uplifted and proud.