Canada’s Ruck wins eighth medal at Games
GOLD COAST, AUSTRALIA — Canadian teenage swimmer Taylor Ruck wrapped up a fairy-tale Commonwealth Games on Tuesday with a record-tying eighth medal — a silver in the 4x100 medley relay — then returned to reality at the athletes village.
Making history on the international sports stage apparently doesn’t cut you any slack when it comes to an online English exam scheduled for the day after.
A beaming Ruck, still processing her bumper medal haul of one gold, five silver and two bronze, didn’t seem to mind after a breakthrough six-day competition that saw her win medals in all eight of her events.
“Not in my wildest dreams,” said the 17-year-old from Kelowna, B.C., when asked if she had expected so much hardware.
But Ruck, who won two relay bronze at the Rio Olympics, had served notice she was something special with some eye-popping times since last summer.
“Coming into the competition, I was really excited to see what would come out of it,” she said.
Ruck joins Canadian Ralph Hutton and Australians Susie O’Neill and Emily Seebohm as the only athletes to win eight medals at a Commonwealth Games. Hutton accomplished the feat in 1966 at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Kingston, Jamaica, while O’Neill did it in Kuala Lumpur in 1988 and Seebohm in 2010 in New Delhi.
On Monday, Ruck had tied the Canadian women’s record with her seventh medal, matching Elaine Tanner (four gold and three silver) in 1966.
Thanks to a four-medal showing Tuesday, Canada finished the meet with 20 medals — three gold, 10 silver and seven bronze — including five in para-swimming events. Four years ago, Canadian swimmers won 11 (4-1-6) in Glasgow.
John Atkinson, Swimming Canada’s high-performance director, said the internal forecast had been between 14 and 18 medals.
Ruck helped boost that total. After failing last April to qualify for the world championship, Ruck left her home in Arizona — her parents moved there from B.C. when she was young — and relocated to Toronto in May to work with coach Ben Titley.
It has been a rapid rise since. Canadian team officials expected a breakout meet from the teen here, noting that coming out of the world junior championships last summer in Indianapolis and a December meet in Sheffield, England, she had four swims in the top eight in the world.
Rio hero Penny Oleksiak leaves with three medals and some disappointment. The 17-year-old from Toronto won three relay silvers but failed to make a mark in her individual events. Oleksiak was fourth in the 50 and 100 butterfly, fifth in the 100 freestyle and seventh in the 200 free.
The spotlight has been on Oleksiak since she became the first Canadian to win four medals at a single Summer Games. In Rio, she tied for gold in the 100 freestyle, claimed silver in the 100 butterfly and two bronze in the relays. Oleksiak acknowledged Tuesday that the Rio success has required some adjustments.
“I think the last few years were still kind of trying to figure out my life after Rio and sort out what I wanted to do. And this year was like I’m just going to take a year for myself and just kind of sort stuff out.
“I mean I wasn’t too impressed with my performances at this meet. But that doesn’t mean I can’t go up from here and that doesn’t mean I can’t start preparing for the (2020) Olympics.”
Oleksiak won Olympic gold in the 100 freestyle in a Canadianrecord 52.70. She clocked 53.85 in finishing fifth here. Her Olympic silver medal-winning race in the 100 butterfly produced another Canadian record at 56.46. She was timed in 57.50 here.
“It’s a lot for anyone to cope with, especially a teenager,” Atkinson said of the post-Rio attention. “We know that she is a great talent and we know that there is an adjustment phase to that. I think she swam better as the meet has gone on ... she is a true champion and I think she’ll be coming back from this and be really strong in the future.”