There’s a good chance you will never have heard of Diana Nyad. She’s certainly not in the same league as Lionel Messi or Serena Williams when it comes to name recognition. But the American woman’s story is one that everyone, whether they have any interest in sport or not, should know.

Last week, Nyad won International Autobiography of the Year at the Sports Book Awards for "Find a Way". It was an unsurprising decision; her story is astonishing. Nyad spent much of her childhood focusing her efforts on swimming and, as a teenager, was introduced to marathon swimming, where she found her niche.

Her maiden record-breaking feat was in her first-ever race where she broke the women’s 10-mile world record, clocking 4 hours and 22 minutes. Her impressive list of achievements continued to grow; a world record for swimming the Bay of Naples, completing the 28 miles around the island of Manhattan and the world record for the longest swim without a wetsuit. But it was the idea of swimming from Cuba to Florida which really piqued her interest. The water was shark-infested and ridden with jellyfish. Nevertheless, Nyad believed she could complete the 110-mile crossing.

She made her first attempt in 1978, at the age of 28. However, strong winds and 8-foot high swells pushed her so far off-course that after 42 hours and 79 miles, she was forced to abandon her attempt. Her dream unfulfilled, Nyad was devastated. She didn’t swim another stroke for thirty years.

But in 2011, just days before her 62nd birthday, Nyad vowed to have another go at the Cuba-America swim. What made her think that she could complete a challenge in her sixties that she had failed while in her twenties was anyone’s guess though. “I'd like to prove to other 60 year-olds that it is never too late to start your dreams,” she said. Once again, she failed, thwarted by shoulder pain and asthma attacks.

Again though, she was undeterred. The following month, she made her third attempt but was forced to abandon after 41 hours because the jellyfish stings were so severe they were causing her breathing problems. Her fourth attempt came in 2012. This time, she got further than ever before but for a fourth time did not make it to the Florida shores with storms and jellyfish again proving too severe to continue through.

There are few people who would, after these four devastating failures, consider a fifth attempt. But Nyad did. And on September 2, 2013, the 64 year-old reached the beach in Florida. Nyad has always believed that a champion is a person who doesn’t give up and as she approached land it was, she says, “not really a euphoric celebration but just, you didn’t give up. You f***ing didn’t give up.” As she stepped out of the water, she told the crowd: “You’re never too old to chase your dream.”

Nyad’s story is one that has far greater resonance than purely her own personal achievement. The world of modern sport is almost entirely about medals. In the UK, sports are judged purely and simply by their likelihood of bringing home a handful of silverware from each Olympic Games. Basketball encourages kids from deprived backgrounds to get into sport but there is little chance GB will win Olympic medals, so its funding gets pulled. Or wheelchair rugby, which unquestionably is a worthwhile sport in terms of inclusion, yet it receives not a penny due to the elite team looking unlikely to grab a spot on the Olympic podium.

The argument that we are too focused on medals has been made time and time again. It is in fact, widely accepted that a laser-focus on winning medals and nothing else is damaging in so many ways. Diana Nyad shows why it’s such a damaging attitude. She couldn’t have cared less about Olympic medals. She wasn’t part of a multi-million dollar training programme that had the best sports science or coaching or technology. She wasn’t pushing herself to her absolute limit to win an Olympic medal which has somewhat arbitrarily been decided as being the entire point of sport. All she wanted was to achieve her dream.

I realise this is rich coming from someone who spent almost 15 years training day in, day out with the single goal of performing on the Olympic stage. But reading Nyad’s story brings into sharp focus why, exactly, sport is important. Sport is not important for the few medals that may be collected along the way; rather, sport is important because it brings out the best in people and pushes them beyond their limits in a way that few other things in this world are able to do. Whatever someone decides success is to them, they can achieve it. And the one message from Nyad, to keep going until you Find a Way, can be applied by everyone, everywhere. The only thing limiting you is your decision to give up. It’s as straightforward as that, she says: “I've taken on those life lessons, that big break of just wanting the journey to be an elevated experience, no matter the success. Those people on the beach that day, they were crying. There were several thousand people. What they saw was a human being who had a dream and refused to give up on it. That's how simple the story is.”