Penny Oleksiak

Penny Oleksiak
Personal information
Full name Penelope Oleksiak
National team  Canada
Born (2000-06-13) June 13, 2000[1]
Toronto, Ontario
Height 1.86 m (6 ft 1 in)[1][2]
Weight 68 kg (150 lb)[1]
Sport
Sport Swimming
Strokes Freestyle, butterfly
Club Toronto Swim Club, High Performance Center - Ontario [3]
Coach Bill O'Toole, Ben Titley

Penelope "Penny" Oleksiak (born June 13, 2000) is a Canadian competitive swimmer who specializes in the freestyle and butterfly events. During the 2016 Summer Olympics, she became the first Canadian to win four medals in the same Summer Games and the country's youngest Olympic champion, with a gold in the 100  m freestyle, a silver in the 100 m butterfly, and two bronzes in the women's freestyle relays (4×100 m and 4×200 m). One year prior, Oleksiak had won six medals at the 2015 FINA World Junior Swimming Championships. She is the current junior world and Canadian record holder in the 100 m freestyle and 100 m butterfly, initially setting the records at the age of 15 while improving them at age 16. She currently shares the Olympic record in the 100 metre freestyle with Simone Manuel.[4]

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.[5] At age 9, Oleksiak attempted to join several swim clubs in Toronto, but had trouble swimming the length of pool and was rejected. Oleksiak 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."[6] 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.[3]

Her next goal was to qualify for the 2016 Summer Olympics 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".[2] 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.[7]

2016 Summer Olympics

Oleksiak competed on Canada's Olympic team for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.[8] 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.[9] 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."[9]

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."[10]

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 [11] (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.[12]

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.[13][14] It was announced the morning of the closing ceremony that Oleksiak would be Canada's flag bearer for the event.[15] Just days before the closing ceremony, Penny sneaked back to her home in Toronto to go to Canada's Wonderland with her friend mates and slept for 2 days before heading back to Rio to be the flag bearer during the closing ceremony. [16]

Personal life

Oleksiak is the youngest of five siblings, one of whom is NHL defenceman Jamie Oleksiak, who plays for the Dallas Stars.[17] 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.[18] She attends Monarch Park Collegiate Institute in Toronto, Ontario.[7] Oleksiak has a dog named Jagr after Jaromir Jagr and a cat named Rio.[19]

Personal bests

Long course (50 m pool)

Event Time Venue Date Notes
100 m butterfly 56.46 Olympic Aquatics Stadium, Rio de Janeiro 7 August 2016 WJR, NR
100 m freestyle 52.70 Olympic Aquatics Stadium, Rio de Janeiro 11 August 2016 OR*, WJR, AR

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Penny Oleksiak". Canadian Olympic Team Official Website. Retrieved July 8, 2016.
  2. 1 2 Donna Spencer (April 9, 2016). "Teenage star Oleksiak mows down records at Olympic swimming trials". CBC Sports.
  3. 1 2 "Penny Oleksiak". Swim Canada. Retrieved April 9, 2016.
  4. ↑ Ng, Callum (August 12, 2016). "Penny Oleksiak wins gold, captures historic 4th Olympic medal". CBC Sports. Retrieved August 12, 2016.
  5. ↑ Kevin Sherrington (2016-08-08). "How 16-year-old Penny Oleksiak, Stars defenseman Jamie's sister, became the latest Olympic star". Dallas News.
  6. ↑ "Teenager Penny Oleksiak still growing into her swimming potential". 2016-08-03. Retrieved 2016-08-18.
  7. 1 2 "Person of interest: Swimming Canada's best-kept secret, Penny Oleksiak". SportsNet. August 9, 2016. Retrieved August 10, 2016.
  8. ↑ "Olympic Team Nominated for Rio 2016". Swimming Canada. Swimming Canada. 10 April 2016. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  9. 1 2 Jonathon Gatehouse (August 6, 2016). "The Young and the Fast: Canada wins relay bronze in Rio". Maclean's.
  10. ↑ "Canada's Penny Oleksiak wins 2nd medal of Rio Olympics". CBC Sports. August 7, 2016.
  11. ↑ Penny Oleksiak leads Canada to bronze in 4×200 freestyle relay
  12. ↑ Oleksiak Leads As Canada Destroys National 4×200 Free Relay Record
  13. ↑ Penny Oleksiak gives Canada its first gold a Rio, shattering records
  14. ↑ Arthur, Bruce (August 11, 2016). "Swimming phenom Penny Oleksiak earns Canada's first gold in Rio: Arthur". thestar.com. Toronto Star. Retrieved August 12, 2016.
  15. ↑ Rumley, Jonathan (August 21, 2016). "Penny Oleksiak to carry flag for Canada at Rio closing ceremony". cbc.ca. CBC. Retrieved August 21, 2016.
  16. ↑ http://www.ocean985.com/2016/08/26/4-time-gold-medalist-penny-oleksiak-talks-sneaking-home-rio-wonderland-roz-mocha/
  17. ↑ Kerry Gillespie (April 7, 2016). -penny-oleksiak-makes-waves-at-olympic-swim-trials.html "Canada's Penny Oleksiak makes waves at Olympic swim trials" Check |url= value (help). Toronto Star.
  18. ↑ "Get to know Penny Oleksiak, Canada's 16-year-old swimming medalist | Toronto Star". thestar.com. Retrieved 2016-08-14.
  19. ↑ Brandon Share-Cohen (August 16, 2016). "Olympian Penny Oleksiak Names Dog After Jaromir Jagr".

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 12/3/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.