She started training with senior team competitors at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre in September, and by late winter she was there pretty much full-time, swimming daily from 7-10 a.m. and then again from 3-6 p.m. It is the second medal for Canada at the Games following on a bronze in the women’s 4 x 100 freestyle relay on Saturday, a team which Oleksiak anchors.
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A 16-year-old Toronto swimmer is now sporting a second medal in her rookie Olympics. That just took my nerves away.
If Oleksiak seems unusually poised and calm, her parents are not.
Staff at Swimming Canada, where Oleksiak has been a member of the junior program for the past two years, are hoping her increased profile will encourage more young Canadians to get into the pool. “But I’m not super nervous”.
“I definitely had my eye out for her when we turned and I saw her out in front and I just tried to hold on”. The swimming genes can be credited to her mother, Alison, who set swimming records in Scotland before immigrating to Canada.
“The first few seconds after I touched the wall I didn’t look back, I was just trying to catch my breath”, she said, in the COC media release. “But she already has two medals”. Jamie took to Twitter on Sunday night and he was speechless with pride: “I don’t even know what to say right now, that was one of the most intense and fantastic things I’ve seen”. “Getting to see that and then getting to see that you medalled is just an incredible feeling”.
Jamie Oleksiak’s 16-year-old sister, Penny, is making waves for Canada at the 2016 Olympic Games.
“I saw my dad, he stood up and waved to me. Like everything else was just blurred”. Oleksiak blew him a kiss and calmly strolled away to the waiting TV cameras.
Canada’s Penny Oleksiak won her second medal of the Rio Olympics: a silver medal in the women’s 100-metre butterfly.
In many ways she’s still a kid.
Marketing director Chris Wilson called her Rio performance “stellar”.
Bob Hayes, the camp’s director, used to coach Oleksiak at the Toronto Swim Club.
“She doesn’t give up when she’s in a fight, something she’s really honed over the past couple of years”. But Hayes recalls her talent being evident to all. “She was very invested”.
Women’s 100m Butterfly Victory Ceremony – Olympic Aquatics Stadium – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – 07/08/2016.
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“He said, “Who’s that?”
