Alia Atkinson Becomes First Black Woman to Win a World Swimming Title

Jamaican swimmer Alia Atkinson became the first black woman to win a world swimming title Saturday.

The 25-year-old athlete totally crushed the 100m breast stroke at the FINA World Swimming Championships (25m) in Doha, Qatar.

Atkinson participated in the world short course swimming championships as the second favourite, the first being Plymouth-based Olympic Champion Ruta Meilutyte of Lithunia.

Atkinson came from the back in the final length and beat defending champion Meilutyteby 0.1 seconds. According to Jezebel, Atkinson completed the race in 1 minute and 2.36 seconds, while Meilutyte finished 1 minute and 2.46 seconds.

According to FINA - which is the international governing body of swimming, diving, water polo and similar - Atkinson's record counts as its own record.

It was the 17th world record set at the Hamad Aquatic Centre in Doha.

After finishing the race, she told the official FINA website: "I realized I was catching up so I was just trying to get a good finish. I'm not used to seeing my name up in number one so it was kind of a shock, but a good one!"

Atkinson ranked fourth at the London Olympics and has won three world short silver medals, BBC reports.

"I couldn't believe it! It came down to the same thing as the 50 and on the 50 I got out-touched so in my mind I went straight back to that. I just thought 'oh okay' and looked up at the board and it didn't really click yet and then it really started to click. It took a while!"

Unaware of the significance of winning the 100m breaststroke in Doha, Atkinson said: "Hopefully my face will come out, there will be more popularity especially in Jamaica and the Caribbean and we'll see more of a rise and hopefully in the future we will see a push."