WHY ALIA IS SPORTSWOMAN OF THE YEAR 2014

The audience had almost fully dispersed at last year’s RJR Sportsman and Sportswoman of the Year Award when I stood in front of the dias in the ballroom at the Wyndham Hotel where Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce had earlier collected her award as Female Athlete of the Year for her outstanding performances in 2013. At the IAAF World Championships in Moscow, the Pocket Rocket had done something no other Caribbean or Jamaican woman had ever done. She won the triple – 100m, 200m and sprint relay titles and set herself up to be considered as perhaps the greatest ever female sprinter from this country. It was a special accomplishment from an athlete who hails from the land of Merlene Ottey and Veronica Campbell-Brown, a performance neither athlete had ever managed.

It was within that context that I stood in front of the dias interviewing Alia Atkinson, who was runner up to the triple world champion. “It was always going to be hard to beat Shelly given what she did in Moscow,” I said to her commiserating on her runner-up finish in the voting. “Shelly had an amazing year. She is an amazing athlete. I am going to have to do something special to win that award,” Atkinson replied from behind a brilliant smile.

We concluded the interview and then some time after I was engaged in a conversation with Alia’s coach Christopher Anderson and her aunt. During the conversation, Anderson remarked that Alia could break the 100-metre breaststroke ‘any day now. All she has to do is believe she can.’

Fast forward a year and we are two weeks away from another RJR Sportsman and Sportswoman of the Year Award and this time it is Shelly who might be thinking what Alia was about her a year ago, because this time Alia has done that special thing and she has her world record.

Fraser-Pryce had an ordinary year by her own standards. A 6.98-dash at the World Indoors in Poland for her first indoor title puts her in contention for this year’s award. It was one of the few moments Fraser-Pryce enjoyed in a year marred by injury. Commonwealth Games relay gold was her only other accolade.

Kaliese Spencer had perhaps the most outstanding year winning silver in the 400 metres in Poland. She also won the Diamond League , Commonwealth Games and World Athletic Final titles in the 400-metre hurdles. Her recent Golden Cleat Award for Female Athlete of the Year is testimony to her accomplishments.

But while Spencer was outstanding and Fraser-Pryce now trails Merlene Ottey as the fastest ever Jamaican woman indoors, it is Atkinson who was most spectacular.

In Doha, Atkinson did something no other Jamaican had done before. She also did something no other woman of her colour had done before and something no other negro woman had in four decades. In winning the 100-metre breaststroke Atkinson became the first and the first in 40 years. That to me means she cannot be topped.

Merlene and Veronica have won indoors, Melaine has accomplished what Kaliese has, but no one has done what Alia has. She is the trailblazer; first black woman to win a swimming world title, first Jamaican swimmer to hold a world record, and first black woman in 40 years to have a world record. Those accomplishments can never be beaten. Like Courtney Walsh, when he became the first bowler with 500 Test wickets, Alia’s record will be forever ingrained in the annals of Jamaican sports history.

As a bonus she also set about four national records in the pool this year.

She has also done something no other Jamaican swimmer has ever done. She made others believe that setting world records and winning global titles are possible. Vice President of the Amateur Swimming Association Alan Roy Marsh said it best when we spoke just before I wrote this. “If anybody had said in my time that anybody from Jamaica would break a world record, we would think them crazy. What Alia has done is shown us what is possible.” For that alone, she deserves to be Sportswoman of the Year.

On the men’s side Nicolas Walters should be the first boxer since Mike McCallum to lift the Sportsman of the Year Award. O’Dayne Richards made history at the Commonwealth Games when he became the first Jamaican to win a Commonwealth title in the shot put. He also broke the national record 21.61m which made him the fifth best thrower in the world in 2014. The silver at the World Athletics final was also outstanding for Richards and that makes him a serious contender for the award.

However, knocking out both Vic Darchinyan and Nonito Donaire, two of the best fighters in the featherweight division within the span of six months while crowning himself WBA Featherweight Super Champion and remaining unbeaten, for me makes the Axeman the winner.