RIO DE JANEIRO – It just wasn’t meant to be. Jamaica’s Alia Atkinson finished eighth in the women’s 100m breaststroke final in an extremely slow 1:08.10 minutes here at Olympic Aquatics Stadium in Rio de Janeiro late last night.
Atkinson, 27, who is competing in her fourth Olympic Games, swam from lane seven and was seventh at the halfway mark but had a terrific push off the wall and momentarily moved into fifth place before fading afterwards.
American Lilly King outbattled Russian Yulia Efimova to win the gold medal in an Olympic record time of 1:04.93 minutes. Efimova, who served a 16-month doping sentence in 2013, was again booed by crowd, but she grabbed the silver medal in 1:05.50 minutes, with Katie Meili of the United States of America picking up the bronze in 1:05.69 minutes.
China’s Jinglin Shi was fourth in 1:06.37, followed by Rachel Nicol of Canada in fifth, with world record holder Ruta Meilutyte of Lithuania finishing a disappointing seventh with 1:07.32 minutes.
Atkinson had the slowest reaction time of 0.75 of the eight swimmers and just couldn’t reproduce her form from Sunday and was never a factor at any stage of the event. She had registered 1:06.52 minutes in her semi-final on Sunday, and has a personal best of 1:05.93 minutes.
She had finished fourth at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, England, and refused interviews with the Jamaican press last night. (Jamaica Observer)