Alia Atkinson poses with all of her awards from the RJR National Sports Foundation.
Jamaican World Championship winning, and World Record tying, swimmer Alia Atkinson has been named the RKR Sports Foundation’s National Sportswoman of the Year.
Atkinson was honored in a ceremony on Friday night alongside boxer Nicholas Walters, the Sportsman of the Year winner.
Atkinson was the first non-track and field athlete to win the Sportswoman of the Year award since 1976, marking another breakthrough milestone after becoming the first black woman to win a swimming World Championship when she topped the 100 meter breaststroke at the World Short Course Championships in December.
She also becomes just the 3rd swimmer ever, after Belinda Phillips (1974) and Frances Noble (1968) to win the award since its inception in 1962.
Alia Atkinson was crowned the RJR Sports Foundation National and Sportswoman of the Year for 2017.Atkinson was winning her second Sportswoman of the Year award, having first won the crown in 2014. She currently shares the 100 SCM breaststroke world record (1:02.36), and holds the 50 SCM breaststroke World record (28.64). On the FINA World Cup circuit last season (2017) she won 11 of the 12 finals she competed in on the circuit. Atkinson finished the season as the short-course world leader in the 50 SCM at 28.84 seconds and the 100 SCM at 1:02.67.
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/sports/mcleod-atkinson-on-top-cop-2017-rjrgleaner-national-sportsman-sportswoman-of-the-year-awards_123091