But the future arrived early here in Rio.
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Oleksiak seems awfully nonchalant about two medals in two days, and turning in the best Olympic performance by a Canadian woman since Anne Ottenbrite’s gold, silver, bronze in Los Angeles in 1984-16 years before she was born.
It was only fitting that Canada’s first medal of the Rio Olympics came from a team of women athletes. You know, the winters and all that grittiness you guys deal with there.
“She holds that in her heart, too”.
In many ways she’s still a kid.
Van Landeghem and her teammates set a Canada record in their medal effort with a time of 3:32.89.
When Ottenbrite won her gold in Los Angeles, she was 18-years-old and was the oldest swimmer in her the final.
Richard still has his USA citizenship, which allowed his son, Jamie to represent either country. On a Wednesday night session at the University of Toronto, where the swim club shared the pool with the national high-performance squad, he wandered over and asked Hayes for her name.
A six-time medal victor at the world junior championships in 2015, she picked up her first medal in Saturday’s relay.
Titley shook her hand that day and said it felt like shaking the hand of a professional basketball player. But Hayes recalls her talent being evident to all. “I look like I’m kicking and swimming in the stands”, Allison joked. Oleksiak now holds the national records in both those events-53.31 and 56.46 respectively (current world records are 52.06 and 55.48).
Oleksiak also helped Canada win bronze in the 4×100-metre relay yesterday, swimming the anchor leg.
After she touched the wall and gulped for air for a few seconds, not sure where she finished, Penny Oleksiak turned around and saw it.
22-year-old Van Landeghem swam second in the race. But Canada’s talismanic captain is joined this time by a younger cast including 21-year-old forward Beckie, who scored Canada’s other two goals. “Different generation. If we have any questions about what’s hip or what’s happening, we’ll ask Penny”. And still is. Here’s the 411 on Canada’s new swimming star.
Cochrane won silver in the 1,500 at the London Games four years ago and bronze in Beijing in 2008 in the same event. She took down defending Olympic champion Dana Vollmer in order to grab the silver behind world record holder Sarah Sjostrom, and once again break her world record. Oleksiak was almost a full second back at 56.46. “She’s just humble, pleasant and very polite”.
“A great way to start, I couldn’t be happier”, said head coach Lisa Thomaidis. When I was in age-group meets sometimes I only had five minutes. I can’t really go through all of them.
The added weight around her neck is yet another thing she should probably get used to – and perhaps build up for an even greater load. “I was just trying to keep my head down and race as fast as I could”.
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Oleksiak was in fourth place, out of the medals, after 50 meters. “Not top 40. She gets mad at me if I listen to top 40”.
