"SHAKE the hands of a great Olympian, you may not be able to do so later." Alia, congratulations, we thought you were joking.

Years ago, while you were a member of the Y Speedos Swim Club, Jamaica, you would complete each swim and then make your way across to the stands where your mom, Sharon, and other parents were sitting. You would impishly hold out both hands demanding that we shake them now because we might not be near to do so in the future when you accomplish some phenomenal feats in swimming.

I remembered as you kept doing this Sharon and I would say to you, 'Alia, stop dreaming, just go and warm down.' We knew you were determined, but we never dreamt that you would have persisted until a dream of a race, no pun intended, was realised on December 6, 2014 in Doha, Qatar. You equalled the 100-metre breaststroke record in a time of 1:02.36 minutes. You are the first black woman to have done this.

Back in the days, at the poolside, we argued that black people or people of African descent could not do well in swimming because of body types, that certain body type lacks buoyancy in the water. Yet, we still took our children daily to the pool and to swim meets abroad. The Y Speedos Swim Club, under the guidance of Barbara Briggs, would yearly take a group of qualified swimmers to the Junior Swimming Olympics at the Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale. There were many swimmers there, far more talented than you were Alia, but none as determined; none as focused. I remembered a particular year at the Junior Olympics in Fort Lauderdale, you were just 11 years old and you had lost the 50-metre butterfly when we felt it was your race to take. My daughter and others had lost out in some of the races that we thought would have gone to Y Speedos swimmers. I remembered that some parents were a little upset because the children seemed to be more interested in playing, but your mother laughed and told us to relax and allow the children to enjoy themselves as we were taking swimming too seriously.

But you Alia, were different, even when your mother called you and told you to relax, you gently reminded her that you were alright but wanted to speak to the coach to find out what you did wrong to have lost the gold medal for that 50-metre race.

We marvelled that, at 11 years, you were walking with the swim coach around the pool and strategising. You had asked him to pinpoint exactly where in the pool you lost the race. It was two hours before your next race, but you wanted to know what went wrong with your driving, breathing and your turn. You were determined to correct your mistakes before going into the 50-metre breaststroke. And what a race it was, you went one up to set a meet record for the event.

Yet, we still did not believe in the dream you had for Jamaica, you had for swimming, when you insisted then that you were going to do better than or just as well as Amanda Beard, who

held the world record for the 200-metre breaststroke and Janet Evans, multiple record holder for the freestyle events. We continued not believing even when you and our children were swimming for Jamaica at the Carifta and CCAN levels. Even when you and others set multiple national and Caribbean records, we still did not envision that a Jamaican could set a world record in any of the swimming events.

We probably should have disregarded the scientific data and listened to you, Alia, and watch that indomitable spirit. There were small signs back then that you had noticed. Anthony Lee Ervin, a black American, who was born

May 26, 1981, had won a gold medal in the men's 50-metre freestyle in the summer Olympics of 2000. He also won two World Championships gold medals. Janelle Atkinson, a Jamaican swimmer, had also set a foundation by winning three silver medals at the Pan American Games in 1999. And even earlier Andrew Phillips had made the final in the 200m Individual medley in the 1984 Olympics and placed a creditable sixth.

Alia, I have followed you over the years, through your appearances at the 2004 and 2008 Olympics. I was there in London when you just missed out on a medal. I observed the frenzy of Gillian Millwood, our young swim coach who now leads the national swim programme and am buoyed that we have a group of young people just in their mid-20s who are able to debunk the myth that black swimmers cannot excel at the highest levels. Alia, you particularly have caused scientists to rewrite the Ivy League data that indicated that a black body is not efficiently buoyant in water. The swimming narrative has been rewritten by you, a Jamaican.

Dr Rachael Irving is senior research fellow in the Department of Basic Medical Sciences-Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of the West Indies, Mona.