Swimmers party like it’s 1996
Women’s relay team wins Canada’s first medal in the pool since Atlanta
A bronze medal draped around her neck, swimmer Michelle Williams sounded like a senior citizen Sunday morning explaining life with her 16-year-old relay teammates Taylor Ruck and Penny Oleksiak.
The 25-year-old Williams likes her smartphone, but she’s not surgically attached to it like the teenage sensations on the Canadian swim team. At times, Williams feels like she’s learning a new language complete with terms like “bless up” (translation: I’m so happy) and “it’s so lit.” (translation: this so exciting, it’s on fire.)
“I learn different phrases that the kids use every day,” a bleary-eyed Williams said Sunday morning, roughly 12 hours after Canada captured its first medal of the Games by finishing third in the women’s four-by-100-metre freestyle relay. “So I would say this medal, it’s lit.”
Canadians back home likely struggled to fall asleep Saturday night after the rush of watching Oleksiak hold off three-time Olympic champion Ranomi Kromowidjojo on the final leg.
But her teammates — Williams, Winnipeg’s Chantal Van Landeghem, Ruck of Kelowna, B.C., and Sandrine Manville of Lachine, Que, — believed the youngster could withstand the pressure from the Dutch superstar, even at her first Summer Games.
“We had so much confidence in her,” said Williams, who raced in the heats but was benched in the final in favour of her fellow Torontonian Oleksiak. “She’s a back-half swimmer, so if she was able to be ahead by the last 50 metres, we knew she would hold on.”
And hold on she did, touching the wall ahead of the Netherlands to give the Canadian women their first Olympic swimming medal since Marianne Limpert won silver in the 200-metre medley in 1996 — the year Pokemon trainers started capturing fictional creatures on the Nintendo Game Boy.
It is also the first trip to the podium for the Canadian women in the four-by-100 freestyle relay since 1976 — all the way back when “this is lit” referred to a light bulb.
Forty years after the fact, Canada was deemed a medal possibility for Saturday’s race but hardly a favourite.
“Honestly, even before we showed up in Rio, we knew this was a possibility and that if all five of us swam our best, we would be a threat for the podium,” Van Landeghem said.
The blazing Australians set a new world record of three minutes, 30.65 seconds to win gold. Katie Ledecky and the United States claimed silver in 3:31.89. Canada stopped the clock at 3:32.89.
“My phone has been totally blowing up with support from everybody at home,” said Ruck, who is entering Grade 11 in September. “I’ve tried to say thank you to everyone who has been congratulating me on Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and text. I’m still catching up.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sent out a congratulatory tweet to the team during his beach vacation in Tofino, B.C. Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman gave Van Landeghem a thrill by mentioning her on Twitter.
“The amount of support I get from Winnipeg is unmatched,” the six-foot-four speedster said. “Just so many texts, tweets, Instagrams from friends, family, people I’ve never met but who are so proud.”
The Canadian Olympic team as a whole was proud, and relieved, to win the first medal of these Games so early. The pressure is also off a rebuilding Canadian swimming team — 24 of its 28 members are Olympic rookies — after collecting a combined four medals over the last four Summer Games.
Ruck and Oleksiak were pegged as potential medallists for the 2020 Tokyo Games, but they clearly have no intention of waiting their turn.
“I hope that the rest of Team Canada uses this as motivation or inspiration,” said Van Landeghem, 22, “because there’s obviously still a lot of things to come — hopefully great things for Canada.”