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RIO 2016 SWIMMING THE BEST EVER How Penny Oleksiak—‘the child’ of the Canadian team—came from nowhere to become its greatest Summer Olympian, and what comes next for the teenage phenom. By Jonathon Gatehouse Penny Oleksiak dips her hand into her red Team Canada backpack and retrieves four wool work-socks. Put aside the question of what kind of person brings winter foot-wrap- pers to the Summer Olympics, and focus instead on what’s inside them. Grabbing the green and yellow ribbons, she pulls the med- als out one-by-one, laying the two bronze on her thighs, then the silver, and finally gold. She drapes them around her neck. It’s the first time she has worn all four at once. “They’re so heavy!” she exclaims. The Rio baubles weigh 500 grams each. As she walks across the room they clink together, making a sound like wind chimes. The Maclean’s photographer wants some- thing iconic. He grabs his phone and shows her that picture of the great American cham- pion Mark Spitz, with his cheesy moustache and seven golds from Munich 1972. I ask if she knows who Spitz is. “Not really,” Oleksiak admits with an embarrassed little laugh. “But I think I’ve seen the photo.” The 16-year-old Torontonian can be for- given for not knowing swimming history: She’s been too busy making it. Oleksiak finishes her Winning smile: Oleksiak looks triumphant after her gold performance in the 100-m freestyle 3 3 Tie game: Oleksiak (right) surged forward from seventh place at the 50-m turn to finish the race at the exact same time as Simone Manuel (left) first Olympics, which was also her first major in lots of late victory ceremonies and press about it a little bit, but I don’t think it’s changed international meet, with the most medals ever conferences, too-wired-to-sleep nights and too much,” she says. “I’m just going to go won by a Canadian at a single Summer Games. early-morning media commitments. She stifles home and try to live my life normally, I guess.” Her gold in the 100-m freestyle was the coun- a yawn, and admits that she’s looking forward Before leaving for Rio, she went shopping at try’s first in the pool since Mark Tewksbury’s to getting back home, where she hopes to “lay Lululemon and got turned down when she backstroke win at Barcelona ’92. The bronze low” and enjoy what’s left of her summer. asked for a discount because she was a mem- she won along with her teammates in the 4 x (Given that she’s the odds- ber of Team Canada. Now 100-m free relay on the Games’ opening night, on favourite to carry Can- there’s a giant billboard with is the first swim medal by Canadian women ada’s flag in the closing cere- her face on it alongside the since Atlanta 1996. She and Taylor Ruck, monies Aug. 21, her Gardiner Expressway in another barely-16-year-old Canadian relay departure is likely to be downtown Toronto. swimmer, became the first Olympic medal- delayed.) She wants to start There is one big obligation lists born in the 2000s. With Oleksiak leading in on some driving lessons, in her immediate future—a the way, adding a silver in the 100-m butterfly and figures that her mom math exam that she put off and chipping in for another bronze in the 4 x and dad, Alison and Richard, in the spring so she could 200 free, Canada’s swim team left Rio with a owe her a dog, since her big concentrate on training. Her total of six medals. That’s two more than the brother Jamie, now a mem- face falls when she’s reminded country won in the pool over the previous ber of the Dallas Stars, got of it. “I actually talked to my three Summer Games combined. one for making the Canadian mom about it today. I think Still, ask Oleksiak what the biggest highlight World Junior hockey team we’re going to hold off on of her Olympics was—standing on the top of in 2012. it,” she says, hopefully. “I the podium as “O Canada” played, or getting a She’s heard that someone don’t want to study. I just shout-out from Drake on Instagram—and she is is planning a parade for her want to chill out. I don’t want They suit her: Oleksiak tries on legitimately torn. “It’s kind of hard to choose. and the other Olympians to do my exam. I’m just going all her new medals at once Because Drake reaching out to me means a lot. from the east end of Toronto, to try and avoid it.” He’s such a Canadian icon and there’s a lot of and there’s talk that she might get the key to Canada’s best-ever Summer Olympian has kids that look up to him,” she says. “But win- the entire city, but she’s not sure what else is yet to finish Grade 10. ning the gold means a lot to me too.” in store. She has a newly acquired agent, who Oleksiak swam nine times in Rio, setting is working with her mom to sift through what- The air is pretty thin up in row “U,” the next- one Olympic record and five Canadian records ever endorsement offers come her way. Will to-last seats at Rio’s Olympic pool, but that’s in the process. Winning four medals resulted her life be different from now on? “I’ve thought not why the Oleksiak family was having trouble GATEHOUSE; JONATHAN BY PHOTOGRAPH IMAGES; RICHARD HEATHCOTE/GETTY JIN-MAN/AP SPREAD: LEE PREVIOUS 3 4 AUGUST 29, 2016 RIO 2016 breathing. At the 50-m turn of the women’s to join three different competitive clubs in showed up at the pool, she was an inch taller,” 100-m freestyle race, Penny was in seventh Toronto, but failed because she couldn’t com- he says. (Oleksiak, who is currently six foot place, almost a full second behind the leader plete the requisite two laps of the pool. one, having sprouted three inches in the last and world record holder, Cate Campbell of Gary Nolden, who finally took her on at the year, has been the tallest kid in her class ever Australia. Then she surged in the back-half, Midland Pool in Scarborough, remembers that since she started school. “I was always in the piston-kicking, arms slicing the water like she couldn’t breaststroke to save her life. “It back row of every class picture,” she says.) scythes, reeling in her competitors one by one was a combination of freestyle with breast- Oleksiak first caught the eye of Canada’s until she touched the wall. It took a while to stroke pull and a fly kick—it high-performance program establish what had happened—a tie for gold was just a mess.” But there that same year. One Wed- with Simone Manuel of the United States. was always plenty of deter- AT AGE 11, ‘EVERY TIME nesday night, she was swim- Penny’s sister, Hayley, 22, dropped to her mination. When she was SHE SWAM SHE GOT ming at the University of knees, screaming, and hugged their mother. 10, Oleksiak got involved FASTER. EVERY TIME SHE Toronto pool with her club, Jamie, 23, who had paid to bring the family to in a contest with a bunch of alongside members of the Brazil after Oleksiak unexpectedly made the 14- and 15-year-old boys to SHOWED UP SHE WAS national team, when Ben team at the Canadian trials in April, claims he see who could do the most AN INCH TALLER.’ Titley, the head Olympic slipped into shock, unaware that his little sis- push-ups on the edge of the coach in Rio, saw something ter was Olympic champion until the others pool deck. She kept going until her arms gave intriguing. “It was her size, her limb length, told him. “It was a thousand emotions at once, out and she fell face-first into the cement, the way she just moved through the water. I it was so overwhelming,” he said, a couple of breaking her front tooth in half. A day later, do remember thinking, ‘Whoa, what the hell minutes after she climbed the top step of the after a trip to the dentist, she was back in is going on here?’ ” Titley, an Englishman, podium. “Leave it to Penny to make it a roller the pool doing her lengths. By the time she had been one of Great Britain’s Olympic coaster, you know what I mean?” was 11, Nolden knew she was special. “Every coaches in Athens, Beijing and London. It Down in lane 5, Oleksiak stared straight time she swam she got faster. Every time she was his first week on the job in Canada. He ahead at the wall for more than 20 seconds before finally daring to turn around and take a peek at the scoreboard. “I can’t remember the noise. I just remember seeing flags and people clapping,” she says. “Then I turned around and saw the number and everything hit me at once. I heard everyone screaming. It was kind of like a movie.” Her family moved down to the good seats for the victory ceremony. As she made her way around the pool, gold dangling around her neck and a Canadian flag in hand, she climbed up to them, embracing and crying with her mom, dad and Hayley, and settling for a stiff and awkward hug with her hulking brother.