Balancing swimming, school and a Star award
Practice comes before publicity for top athlete, most of the time
Even after Penny Oleksiak’s four-medal performance at the Rio Olympics vaulted her from talented teenager to national star, her coach, Ben Titley, issued an edict: No missing practice to do media.
He might have made an exception Saturday, as Oleksiak appeared at the midway point of an all-day swim meet at the University of Toronto to accept the Lou Marsh Trophy, an award bestowed annually upon Canada’s outstanding athlete.
A panel of sports journalists selected Oleksiak from a short list of12 contenders last month, a list that included Pittsburgh Penguins centre Sidney Crosby and Olympic track star and triple medallist Andre De Grasse.
But Oleksiak’s standout performance in Rio elevated her above even that accomplished crowd. In addition to winning gold in the 100-metre freestyle, Oleksiak earned silver in the 100-metre butterfly and bronze medals in two relays.
Since then the 16-year-old has mostly succeeded at returning to her normal life, but her Olympic success and rising public profile have shifted her definition of normal. Sometimes that means overriding the impulse to act like a teenager.
“When I got to swim meets and events where people know who I am . . . I realize I actually remind myself of what I’m doing,” Oleksiak said. “Sometimes I’m a goof and I don’t really focus on that and I do my own thing.”
Oleksiak is the eighth swimmer to win the Lou Marsh Trophy, and the first since 1992, when Olympic gold medallist Mark Tewksbury won it.
As Oleksiak accepted the trophy from Torstar board chair John Honderich, a group of young swimmers gathered a few metres away, waiting for autographs. Older swimmers trickled in through a nearby door, arriving early before their afternoon competition.
In some ways Oleksiak’s workload is the same as any other teenager’s. She’s enrolled in Grade 11 at Monarch Park C.I., taking classes in law, science and history.
But at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre in Scarborough, she trains like the world-class athlete she is. Oleksiak says she has spent the last few weeks dealing with a minor shoulder injury, but is ramping up training ahead of her return to competition later this year.
Until now, Oleksiak and her coaches have struck a productive balance between school and swimming. Four months after Rio, she won two golds, a silver and a bronze at the world short course championships in Windsor, Ont.
Oleksiak hopes to race again in March in Indianapolis, then plans to compete a month later at the Canadian trials in Victoria.
But as she returns to the world-class swim scene Oleksiak also realizes her rising profile might force some changes to the routine that led to the success that made her famous.
“My coach gets really angry whenever I miss a practice for media but I usually end up making it up,” Oleksiak says. “I don’t really miss practice.”