TOKYO, Japan — Two seconds off her best speaks volumes of why Jamaica’s swimming sensation, Alia Atkinson, failed to progress from the first round of the women’s 100m breaststroke here last night.

But, according to the accomplished 32-year-old, five-time Olympian, the writing had been on the wall for the past two years or so.

“It wasn’t quite where I wanted it to be, I wasn’t as sharp as the races normally feel, and it just felt lackadaisical,” Atkinson, with water still dripping from her body, told the Jamaican media inside the mixed zone at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre moments after exiting the pool following her third-placed finish in heat three in 1:07.70 minutes.

The race was won by Lithuania’s Kotryna Teterevkova in 1:06.82 minutes, with Germany’s Ana Elenot second in 1:06.96 minutes.

With a listening ear on the interview and an eye on the other heats via television monitors in the area, Atkinson recognised early that her effort on the night was in danger.

“I don’t know…they just did another one [fast time], I don’t think so, I think I’m out!” she told the stunned Jamaican media personnel.

The top 16 swimmers advanced to the semi-finals and Atkinson’s effort was only good enough for 22nd place of the six heats on the night, but her troubles were known long before.

“So, I think for the last two years I’ve just been working on executing a good race, putting all the technical stuff together and for some reason it just couldn’t come together, so we were hoping that more or less on a bigger stage I would be able to get that type of style back again, but it still wasn’t there,” Atkinson said.

She added: “I think, for me, I went out a bit too slow, usually I’m like 30, 31 [seconds] going out, so I think I took it out a little bit too slow and on the way back it should have been more of a charge, but I don’t think that push was there at the end.”

Atkinson appeared to be the marginal leader over the first 50m, but was pegged back by the top two over the last part of the race, so there was definitely a tinge of disappointment not advancing to the semis.

“Because I’m here I wanted to be able to perform the best and considering that I’m two seconds off my best, it’s not where I would like to finish my last Olympics, but I have to look at the long run and the perseverance through it. I must admit that I’m glad that I fought through 20-something years; this is not the result of it, but hey, I’m here,” concluded the woman who made her Olympic Games debut in 2004 when she exited in the first round.

She has a best-placed effort of fourth at the London Games, and eighth at the last edition in Rio.

The pioneering Atkinson, the first black woman in history to win a world title in swimming when she copped the 100m breaststroke at the 2014 Doha Short Course World Championships in a world record-equalling performance, believes there could be some amount of impact on athletes performing under COVID-19 protocols, which includes behind closed doors.

“I don’t know if it is just the maturity in the Games but today, especially without spectators, it really just looked like a competition, it was weird. It didn’t have the big hype of the people going crazy, it didn’t have that excitement that is usually in the air, so I think because of that it just looked like a little age group meet and I think that was humbling to say it is just a meet, so I guess, that’s it.”

But, on second thoughts, she added: “It has to, it’s like a basketball game where you don’t hear the crowd pushing you on, and that little extra push. I’m sure there is something there but, for me, in the long run, not that much, and you can’t really hear them in the water anyways.”