Penny Oleksiak

Career

After learning to swim at a neighbour's pool, Oleksiak took up the sport at the age of 9 encouraged by her father. She had also taken up gymnastics and competitive dance. Oleksiak attempted to join several swim clubs in Toronto, but was rejected having trouble swimming the length of pool. She was eventually taken in by coach Gary Nolden at the Toronto Olympian Swim Team where she gained the foundation that started her swimming career. Looking back at how she began her swimming career at the Toronto Olympian Swim Team, Oleksiak said, "The coach there really helped me. He had a lot of faith in me. If I hadn't gone to that club, I don't think I would be where I am today." Within a year, a race by Oleksiak at the University of Toronto drew the attention of coach Ben Titley, who would go on to lead Canada's Olympic team. Extra investments came as data analytics division of Swimming Canada appointed Oleksiak, whose top FINA ranking at the time was 319th, as a possible Olympic medalist in the 2020 Summer Games. First indications of great potential for Oleksiak were identified when, six weeks after fracturing her elbow in a cycle accident, she was still able to win six medals at the 2015 FINA World Junior Swimming Championships. This included a gold in the mixed 4 × 100 m freestyle relay; silver in her signature 100 m freestyle event; silver in the 50 and 100 m butterfly; a silver in the 4 × 200 m relay and a bronze in the 4 × 100 m freestyle events.

Her next goal was to qualify for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro as part of the Canadian national team; there she set the Junior world record in qualifying for the 100 m freestyle . After winning the race she said "being able to get the world junior record means quite a bit to me". Oleksiak also beat Chantal Van Landeghem's Canadian record in the process; Van Landeghem joined Oleksiak in the 100 and 4 × 100 m freestyle events for the Olympics. Oleksiak also set the Canadian and World Junior records in the 100 m butterfly en route to the Olympics in that event. Before the Olympics, Oleksiak had risen to 49th in the 100-metre freestyle rankings and 37th in the 100-metre butterfly, and the Swimming Canada analysts appointed her to possibly win a medal in Rio.

2016 Summer Olympics

Oleksiak would compete for Canada's swimming team at the Rio 2016 Olympics in five races. Her competition began on day one. In the heats of the 100 m butterfly, she broke the national record and world junior record with a time of 56.73 on her way to the semi-finals. Oleksiak also anchored the final leg of the women's 4×100 m freestyle relay team with Taylor Ruck, Chantal van Landeghem, Sandrine Mainville, and Michelle Williams with the latter only swimming in the heat. In the final of the relay event she held on to the third position against the United States and Australia, winning Canada's first Olympic medal in the women's freestyle relay in 40 years. After the race the 16 year old said "No one really expected this of Canada coming into the meet, but now that we are here, people are going to be surprised at what we do."

The next night she competed in the 100 m butterfly final. Oleksiak started out fast, touching the halfway wall in third before finishing characteristically strong in second place, winning the silver medal. She again bettered her world junior record and Canadian record in the 100 m butterfly in the process. Oleksiak became the first Canadian to ever win a medal on each of the first two days of the Olympics. With the win she exclaimed that "I'm just happy that I made Canada proud and getting to look up into the stands and find my parents, it's just amazing for me and it's such a great feeling."

Returning to the pool on day five, Oleksiak again had a record breaking qualifier followed by a relay medal. She broke the world junior record of the 100 m freestyle with 52.72, the second fastest time of the qualifying heats, and anchored the 4×200 m freestyle relay, again winning the bronze (along with Katerine Savard, Taylor Ruck, and Brittany MacLean). Oleksiak's leg time of 1:54.94 was the 4th fastest in the field after the three medalists of the 200 m freestyle.

On day six, Oleksiak won the gold medal in the 100m freestyle. She tied with Simone Manuel setting an Olympic record of 52.70. Oleksiak is the youngest Canadian to become an Olympic champion, the first to win four Summer Olympics medals in the same edition, and has the second most medals of the country in a single edition after Cindy Klassen in the 2006 Winter Olympics. It was announced the morning of the closing ceremony that Oleksiak would be Canada's flag bearer for the event. Just days before the closing ceremony, Penny sneaked back to her home in Toronto for two days to go to Canada's Wonderland with her friends, before heading back to Rio to be the flag bearer during the closing ceremony.

2016 Short course world championships

In December 2016 Oleksiak participated in the short course world championships in the Canadian city of Windsor. Being her first international competition following the Olympics, in front of her own crowd, Oleksiak was the centre of attentions of fans and media. Oleksiak won a bronze medal in the women's 100 metre freestyle on the third day of competition, and two days later helped the Canadian team win gold in the 4 × 200 metre freestyle relays. In the final day of competition, Oleksiak anchored Canada to another gold, in the 4 × 50 metre freestyle relay, and a silver medal at the 4 × 100 metre medley relay. Canada also finished third in the 4 × 100 metre freestyle relay, but wound up disqualified.

As a result of her perfomances at the 2016 Summer Olympics and the 2016 short course championships Oleksiak was awarded the Lou Marsh Award as Canada's top athlete of the year and was named CBC's athlete of the year as well. She was also given the Bobbie Rosenfeld Award as Canada's female athlete of the year and was named in the team of the year, anchoring the Canadian women's swim team in Rio and Windsor.

Personal life

Oleksiak is the youngest of five siblings, one of whom is NHL defenceman Jamie Oleksiak, who plays for the Dallas Stars. The rest of the family also has an athletic tradition: her father played basketball, football and field athletics and her mother held multiple Scottish Age Group swimming records in freestyle and backstroke. Older sister Hayley is a rower at Northeastern University, and older brother Jake played college hockey. She attends Monarch Park Collegiate Institute in Toronto, Ontario. Oleksiak has a dog named Jagr after Jaromir Jagr and a cat named Rio.

Long course (50 m pool)