TOKYO, Japan — Following her first-round exit from the women’s 100m breaststroke at the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, five-time Olympian Alia Atkinson has no doubts she will call time on her international career at year end.

Atkinson, who made her debut at the 2004 Athens Games, finished third in heat three of the event on Sunday night, and failed to progress to the semi-finals.

She has twice made the final, finished a career-best fourth in the London 2012 Games, while finishing in eighth place at the last edition in Rio.

“Doubtful,” was her frank response to questions posed by Jamaican media at the mixed zone moments after she exited the pool last night.

“If you see me next year, then ask me what happened because that’s not the plan right now. I’m going to finish off the rest of the year as I have World Cups and ISL [International Swimming League] coming up, so we’ll see there, and then December we probably look at where I am in life.”

Atkinson has been a trailblazer in the sport of swimming, not just for Jamaicans, but all those of African descent.

In 2014 she became the first black woman in history to win a world title when she claimed the 100m breaststroke in world record fashion, giving Jamaica its first gold medal at the World Championships.

The following year at the Long Course World Championships in Kazan, Russia, she finished third in the 100m breaststroke, becoming the first Jamaican swimmer to win a medal at the Long Course meet.

She returned in the 50m breaststroke and narrowly missed gold, finishing second after dropping nearly a second off her best time.

And, at the 2018 World Cup, Atkinson competed in the second cluster of the world cup stops, including meets in Eindhoven and Budapest, where she broke the 50m breast world record, lowering her own 28.64 seconds to 28.56 seconds.

And later that year in Hangzhou, Atkinson won the sprint breaststroke crown by winning both the 50m and 100m events and successfully defended her 100m individual medley (IM) bronze medal.

She was voted the SwimSwam 2018 Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Swimmer of the Year for her exploits in leading the region’s women in swimming, and the following year for the fifth time in the six-year history of the award, she was named the 2019 Swammy Awards Central American and Caribbean Female Athlete of the Year.

At last year’s ISL Budapest Bubble, she was key to the London Roar’s success and earned ratings at the third Most Valuable Player for match five. At the end of the season she was ranked 15th highest earner among all swimmers — men and women — as well as 21st highest point earner.

She finished the year ranked second in the world in the 100m short course (SC) breaststroke (1:02.66) and third in the world in the 50m SC breaststroke (28.88) where she still holds the top two fastest performances of all time.

But, for all those accolades, Atkinson believes the more intangibles are most satisfying to her on this journey.

“I think it was all the people I met growing up in Jamaica swimming, and then being an introvert and getting on this stage and having world record holder and medallists and all these people and being among them and having that respect among them, I think that is something I have earned throughout the years, so I think that’s my greatest achievement just looking back and seeing all the success and respect I’ve gone through. My teammates, people on the pool deck, officials and coaches, and stuff,” she said.

And, for the next splash in her life, she has it all sorted.

“My autobiography is coming out and that should be good, I have some swim lessons and swim camps all over the world so that should be fun as well, and just giving back.

“My children’s books, I really want to put the time into that and see if that’s where I can actually venture into. I never had the time to actually sit down and do it and put work into it, so I think that’s where I want to go.”

But would Alia Shanee Atkinson, Order of Distinction (OD), trade any of those successes for any one of the most sought-after medals at the Olympics?

“I don’t think so, because if I was to do that the, to me, it makes it feel like the gratitude of everything that I’ve accomplished would go to waste. The work that I have put in it shows more in short course metres for sure, but just the excitements, everything that’s happened, I can’t change that for nothing.

“I don’t know what this excitement or what this would have brought [had she won an Olympic medal], but that world record and that world title they impacted more than an Olympic medal would have,” she ended.

— Ian Burnett