From World Records to Water Safety: Alia Atkinson Believes Swimming Is for Everyone
Five-time Olympian and world-record-setting swimmer Alia Atkinson has competed at the very highest levels of her sport. Today, she’s using what swimming taught her to help others discover something even more fundamental: confidence, independence and safety in the water.
For Alia Atkinson, learning to swim was never simply about becoming an athlete. It was something her family considered a basic life skill.
“My family has always believed in swimming as a life skill,” Alia says. “When my siblings and I were born, we all learned how to swim before the age of four.”
Growing up in Jamaica, surrounded by water, learning to swim may have seemed like an obvious choice. But Alia says the lesson applies everywhere.
“The mindset I hear is, ‘If I don’t go near any water, then I should be fine.’ The reality is drowning is prevalent in every community and can happen to any person, regardless of age.”
Her parents understood that water safety was knowledge their children would carry throughout their lives. They could not have known just how far swimming would eventually take their daughter.
🐝 The Eight-Year-Old Who Got Back in the Pool
Alia chose to pursue swimming competitively when she was around eight years old. And while she would eventually become a five-time Olympian, world champion, and world-record holder, she remembers being a little girl who mostly wanted to have fun in the water.
Her coaches were already trying to teach her something beyond strokes and turns: the mindset of an athlete. One particular practice has stayed with her.
“A bee stung me on my face during practice and the coach pulled me out of the water, took the stinger out, looked at my tear-filled eyes and swollen cheek and said, ‘You’re an athlete. Things like this can’t defeat you. Now get back in the water.’”
And she did.
“It was probably because I was eight and did what I was told, but a part of me wanted to show the bee that it didn’t get the best of me,” she remembers. “So I went back in and finished the practice.”
Years later, she reminded that coach about the incident.
“He said he was shocked that I actually went back in the water. That’s when he knew I would go far in the sport.”
He was right. But perhaps more importantly, the lesson Alia learned that day stayed with her long after that practice ended.
💪🏾 Swimming Teaches More Than Swimming
After more than 20 years competing internationally, Alia began thinking about how she could share what the sport had given her. She started offering swim camps, drawing upon decades of training, international competition and performing under pressure.
But she also recognized something important: the lessons that helped make her an elite athlete weren't valuable only to elite athletes.
“What I noticed was that the athletic mindset is not innate, nor is it ingrained in athletes at a young age,” she says. “Like the eight-year-old girl, if I was never challenged and shown how to respond when situations arise, then my older self would not have overcome the multitude of obstacles that stood in my way.”
That realization helped lead Alia back to the very beginning: learning to swim.
“I decided to focus on learning to swim to help instill confidence, independence and a love for water in every learner,” she says. “The traits I developed from swimming have shaped me into the person I am, and these traits can help every learner in life.”
That philosophy resonates deeply with the mission of the Winter Park Blue Dolfins Foundation. Learning to swim can save a life. But the benefits don't necessarily stop at water safety. A swimmer can also discover independence. Confidence. Persistence. Joy.
And sometimes, an entirely new understanding of what they are capable of doing.
💧 Making the Water a Place for Everyone
Alia has made adaptive swim instruction an important part of her work as well. Her reason is simple: she wants people who may face additional barriers to have the opportunity to experience the water and everything it can offer.
“My inclusion of adaptive learning to swim originates from a desire to help a vulnerable population,” she explains. “To encourage them to build confidence with new skills, enjoy the sensory, physical and behavioral benefits associated with water, and gain skills that can be generalized to other areas of their life.”
For families of children and adults with disabilities, those accomplishments can take many different forms. Success doesn't have to mean becoming a competitive swimmer. It may mean becoming comfortable putting your face in the water. But it also means:
Learning how to float.
Reaching the side of the pool.
Following a new instruction.
Feeling comfortable in an unfamiliar environment.
Or simply discovering that the water can be a place of joy.
“Being a part of their journey of joy, self-expression and creating a safe and fun environment for them is a blessing post-career,” Alia says.
🏡 The Lessons She Learned at Home
Despite the coaches, teammates and extraordinary athletes Alia encountered throughout her career, when asked about the role models whose influence remains with her today, she comes back to two people: her parents.
“As I got older, I realized I followed my parents' behavior the most,” she says. “The calmness in situations from my father and the strong will to push towards my goals from my mother kept me focused throughout my career.”
Those qualities — calmness when circumstances become difficult and determination to keep moving toward a goal — followed Alia from childhood lessons all the way to the Olympic Games.
Now she hopes to pass them along to another generation.
💦 Alia’s Watabound
Through her Watabound program, Alia is bringing together the different pieces of her swimming journey: swim camps, online mentoring, learn-to-swim instruction and coaching. But the goal isn't simply to create better swimmers.
“Bringing out a person’s best self is the prime objective,” she says, “through physical, emotional and mental wellbeing.”
It's a fitting next chapter for an athlete whose career demonstrated just how far swimming can take someone. Because long before the world records, championships and Olympic Games, there was a little girl whose parents decided she needed to know how to swim.
Then there was an eight-year-old with a swollen cheek who climbed back into the pool. And today, there is Alia Atkinson standing on the other side of the pool, helping someone else discover what they can do.
💙 At the Winter Park Blue Dolfins Foundation, that's the opportunity we want every person to have.
Whether someone is learning at four, forty, or eighty; whether their goal is competition, independence, water safety or simply feeling comfortable in the pool… everyone deserves the opportunity to learn.
Because swimming can become a sport. It can become a passion. It can build confidence that lasts a lifetime.
But most importantly, learning to swim can save a life.
The Winter Park Blue Dolfins Foundation is thankful to have Alia as a spokesperson, spreading the importance of water safety and drowning prevention.