‘SOMETIMES, A STAR IS BORN’
16-year-old Oleksiak wows with Olympics debut
They saw it in the way she worked, in her attitude, in the near perfectly shaped swimmer’s frame and, most important, in the way she moved through the water.
But those at Swimming Canada had to wait for her arrival in Brazil to learn for certain that 16-year-old Penny Oleksiak could handle the pressure of the Olympic Games.
“Sometimes when you come to an Olympic Games with a 16-yearold, the experience is the most important part,” John Atkinson, Swimming Canada’s high performance director, said on Sunday. “Sometimes, a star is born.” In just two days as an Olympian, Oleksiak’s brilliance has indeed been shining through, confirming that more than the future is bright for the Toronto teen.
The precocious star captured a silver medal on Sunday night in the women’s 100-metre butterfly, using a tremendous kick in the final 50 metres to track down Dana Vollmer of the U.S. Oleksiak set her own world junior record with a time of 56:45 seconds. Sweden’s Sarah Sjodstrom took gold in a world-record 55:44.
Sunday’s scintillating display came just one night after Oleksiak swam the anchor leg for the bronze-medal-winning Canadian four-by-100 freestyle relay team.
So yes indeed, a Canadian star is born.
It’s been a remarkable rise for a young kid from an athletic family — her brother Jamie plays defence for the NHL’s Dallas Stars — and the strongest indication yet that an overhaul of Swimming Canada’s scouting and development is on the right path.
Atkinson and the other highend coaches within the Canadian program first discovered Oleksiak two years ago when she was just 14 and impressing her club coach. In little more than a year, she became a multiple world junior medallist and the potential poster girl for 2020.
Here in Rio and clearly ahead of schedule, Oleksiak served notice that she has more than just the potential to be the star Swimming Canada has been searching to develop for more than a decade.
“I don’t want to put any undue pressure on her, but I will say when you have a 16-year-old who anchors a medal-winning relay in her first Olympic Games and is in the final of the 100-metre butterfly, the sky is the limit,” said Atkinson, who spent eight years working for his native Great Britian.
“In the next four years, we are going to find out.”
Oleksiak couldn’t have come around at a more opportune time for the Canadian program, which had long been left in the wake of the powerful U.S. and Aussies. For most of the past two decades, getting to an Olympic final was considered an accomplishment for a Canadian, and sneaking a silver or bronze medal a massive victory.
The country’s Own The Podium program is well aware of the dearth of medals in both swimming and track and field, and determined four years ago that if Canada was going to be a player in the Summer Games, that would have to change.
Funding and focus shifted significantly to both of those disciplines. We saw the results in track with multiple medals at last year’s world championships and now in Brazil, it’s looking to be swimming’s turn.
It never hurts to have a superstar in the midst, however. And with an inspiring start to the first two days of the meet, Oleksiak has been just that.
What does it say about the kid — who didn’t start swimming until, when she was nine years old, she wanted to have fun in a neighbour’s backyard pool — that Canadian coaches wouldn’t hesitate to have her swim anchor on Saturday?
Oleksiak didn’t flinch in that big moment, even when threetime Olympic champion Ranomi Kromowidjojo of the Netherlands was chasing down the Canadian for bronze in the final 50 metres.
“She’s somebody that doesn’t get shaken by the level of competition,” former Canadian Olympian Brent Hayden told Postmedia. “Some can swim faster at smaller meets, but can’t get the same focus and results on a bigger stage. She’s able to cope with that very well. It feeds into her.
“She has that competitive edge that some swimmers never really discover.”
It is that final variable that has Atkinson and Swimming Canada brass most enthused. These 2016 Games were always going to be about building for 2020. Of the 28 who will swim under the Maple Leaf here, 24 are Olympic rookies. The Rio experience was expected to be a key building block, an affirmation of the promise.
Instead, two teenagers — Oleksiak and Emily Overholt — have already qualified for individual finals and there’s more to come. Oleksiak also has the 100-metre freestyle on her schedule as well as the four-by200-metre freestyle relay.
And if Oleksiak’s intimidated by anything about the Olympic experience — the pressure, the environment, the competition — she isn’t showing it. In each of her three 100-metre butterfly races, the Canadian kid has faced Sarah Sjostrom, the Swede who holds the world record in the event.
When asked if she could see herself beating Sjostrom one day, Oleksiak smiled, shrugged her shoulders and asked, “Why not?”
“It doesn’t matter who is in a race — she has a go,” said Atkinson, the personable Brit who has been overseeing high-end performers at Swimming Canada since 2013. “She’s not fazed at all. The ways she looks at it, the lane in front of her is as long as everybody else’s and she’s going to go for it. She believes she has everything to gain and nothing to lose.”
Atkinson has played a big role in the development of Oleksiak and the other young guns. Based out of the national training centre in Toronto, it so far is an example of how the system can work.
Oleksiak and her relay teammates have blossomed there and more are coming in the pipeline. Part of the NextGen — or next generation program — the returns are already rather remarkable for Swimming Canada.
Though Atkinson said she been “on the radar” for a couple of years, Oleksiak first wowed officials with her breakout at last summer’s world juniors, where she won six medals. Gaining valuable experience of racing heats, doping and recovering, it also prepared her logistically for her first Olympics.
Then the wow factor happened again at the 2016 Olympic trials in April when Oleksiak won gold and set Canadian records in both the 100-metre freestyle and 100-metre butterfly.
“We expected her time to drop at trials,” Adkinson said. “But when they dropped a little further than we expected at that point, there was a sense then, that the work was done. Indications were that she was swimming well.
“Her ability to learn straight away and practice is something you can’t teach. It’s something they just get. (Oleksiak’s Olympic debut) wasn’t a massive surprise, but still … for a first Olympics for a 16-year-old is is certainly impressive.
“I think that everybody talks about what the X factor is. Two who people who are physically the same and swim pretty much swim the same times, the pressure and situation of an Olympic final tends to show those who can and those who can’t. We realize she has the physical size an skills and she has the aptitude as well.”
She has that competitive edge that some swimmers never really discover. BRENT HAYDEN, about Penny Oleksiak, above