This week’s open threads highlighted the impact that blacks or people with African descent have had on swimming.
Alia Shanee Atkinson (born December 11, 1988) is a Jamaican swimmer and Olympian. She competed at the 2004 Olympics, and four years later in the 2008 Olympics she finished 25th in the women’s 200-meter breaststroke. She carried the flag for her native country at the opening ceremony of the 2007 Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where she set the Jamaican record in the 100-meter butterfly; and the 2006 Commonwealth Games. She also competed in the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
Jamaican Olympia Alia Atkinson was catapulted into swimming stardom with her history-making swim at the 2014 Short Course World Championships in Doha, Qatar where she won the 100-meter breaststroke, equaling the world record set by Ruta Meilutyte, and becoming the first black woman to win a world swimming title.
She placed first in the 200-yard breaststroke at the 2010 NCAA Championships, swimming for Texas A&M. She also qualified for the 2012 Olympics 100m women’s breast stroke finals after defeating Canadian rival Tera van Beilen in a head to head race for the final position. She subsequently placed 4th in the finals of the 2012 Olympics 100m women’s breast stroke finishing with a time of 1:06.93.
Atkinson won the 100-meter breaststroke at the 2014 Short Course World Championships in Doha (equalling the record set by Rūta Meilutytė in 2013), becoming the first black woman to win a world swimming title. Alia is coached by Chris Anderson since 2001. Alia mostly trains in SOFLO swim team (Broward county, Florida) which is managed by her coach.
As am ambassador for diversity and inclusion in the sport, Atkinson has been active with the International Swimming Hall of Fame, working to promote swimming to youth from different communities. Additionally, Atkinson became a member of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority in 2014, and has been active in advancing the message of increasing swim participation among African Americans.
Enith Sijtje Maria Brigitha (born April 15, 1955 in Willemstad, Curaçao) was one of the leading swimmers of the 1970’s, who represented the Netherlands twice at the Summer Olympics, starting in 1972 (Munich, West Germany). She won two bronze medals at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Canada, for the women’s 100 m and 200 m freestyle. Brigitha was twice named Dutch Sportswoman of the Year, in 1973 and 1974. Enith was the first black athlete to win a swimming medal in the Olympics.
Finishing behind two East German swimmers, Kornelia Ender and Petra Priemer, controversy surrounded her loss as evidence of heavy doping by East German athletes was uncovered in the 1990’s. To date, no East German medals have been stripped or reissued after the evidence surfaced but many people credit Brigitha with an unofficial gold.
After retiring from swimming a few years after the ’76 Olympics, Brigitha went on to open a swimming school in Curacao.
Alison Terry
Alison Terry has come as close as anyone to reaching the Olympics. Growing from a promising high school swimmer, Terry postponed college for a year to make an attempt at history and earn a spot on the 1992 Olympic Team and a trip to the games in Barcelona, Spain. Unfortunately, she would not make the team.
Later, Terry accepted a full scholarship to the University of Tennessee and following her freshman year, she left Knoxville and returned to California where she stopped swimming. Five years later however, Terry would return to the pool making a great comeback by winning her first international medal in the women’s 400-meter freestyle relay during the World University Games.
At the 2000 Olympic Trials, she just missed making the final of the 50 freestyle by two-hundredths of a second, thus ending her bid to become the first African-American female to represent the United States at the Olympics. Terry would still have an opportunity to make history, doing so when she became the first African American elected to the USA Swimming Board of Directors.
Leading up to the Trials, Terry engaged the media in as much publicity as possible to raise awareness about the lack of opportunities for African-American communities. And even though her Olympic dream ended, she continued her crusade to increase diversity throughout the swimming community. Terry began implementing swimming programs in San Diego’s inner-city schools, educating elementary school students on beach safety and assisting in lesson programs.
In 2000, with encouragement from Terry, along with her husband and mother, San Diego officials agreed to keep inner-city pools open year-round for the first time. In 2005, Terry was honored alongside sports heroes Muhammad Ali and Magic Johnson, in addition to Olympian Larsen Jensen, at the Aquatic Foundation of Metropolitan Los Angeles.
**Information courtesy of www.usaswimming.org**