OLEKSIAK SETS SIGHTS ON THIRD OLYMPICS
23-year-old veteran swimmer is waiting to learn her role on deep Canadian team
The teenager stood giggling and blushing, holding the Canadian flag in Brazil with excitement and nervous energy.
Eight years later, the woman, no longer a kid, admits she still giggles, just not as often, and understands who she is and what she's all about.
“In some ways I'm the same person,” said seven-time Olympic medal winner Penny Oleksiak. “And in some ways, I'm extremely different. I've grown up a lot. I've learned a lot about myself.
“My outlook on a lot of things has changed. Some of it is hard to explain. I feel like before, but not really.”
The Paris Olympics of 2024 are three months away. The Canadian swim trials are next month in Toronto. There is a long road and a short path to get to Oleksiak's third Olympic Games.
She was 16 in Brazil in 2016. She was 20 in Japan for the delayed Games of 2021. She will have turned 24 by the time Paris begins, a young age for a male swimmer, a veteran age for a woman.
“I keep hearing I'm a veteran,” said Oleksiak, speaking on the phone from California where she currently lives and trains.
“That sounds weird to me. I don't feel like a veteran.
“In a way, eight years have gone quickly and in other ways not so fast. You don't think about growing up and how you've grown up (before people's eyes). You just live your life. People always want to know how I'm doing and how I've changed and how I've grown up. I think they think about it more than I do.”
Oleksiak wasn't expected to star at the Rio Olympics. Her name was barely known to Canadians at the time. Even the Own The Podium people, who track Canada's best Olympic athletes, figured she would be ready to contend in Japan four years later.
Oleksiak won a gold medal in Brazil and three more medals through the rest of the Games.
By the time the Games had ended she had gone from little known to household name.
Japan was the odd, post-COVID Olympics. It kind of happened: It just didn't seem as memorable to the public as past Games happened to be. Oleksiak won three medals, one individual, two relay, in Tokyo. That gave her seven Summer Olympic medals — the most of any Canadian athlete in history, winter or summer.
Just mentioning that does bring a giggle — for just a second — and then she pauses before calling herself “a professional swimmer. This is what I do.”
These will be the Summer Games for Canada — Summer, as in sensational swimmer Summer McIntosh. This teenager is expected to be the big Canadian star, maybe big world star, in
Paris. The women's swim team is rather deep and Oleksiak isn't sure where she will fit in, swimming individually, swimming in relays, swimming in mixed relays.
The trials and the Canadian coaches will make those determinations over the next month or so. Oleksiak isn't certain where she will fit but she knows she will fit somewhere. And this won't be a swan song Games for her. She plans to be in Los Angeles, basically home for her now, for the 2028 Games.
“I don't know why I do this, because it's not easy,” said
Oleksiak. “Swimming isn't fun. Training isn't fun.
“There's something about this that keeps me in it and keeps me going,” she said. “You're constantly pushing yourself. You're pushing yourself to withhold pain and then more pain and pushing your way through it.
“You fail more times than you succeed, but you keep pushing. And I think that's inside of me.”
It's the Oleksiak in her. The kids seem to have been born to push themselves hard. She talks about her siblings, her brother Jamie in the NHL, and says, “I know how hard he pushes himself to get better. I try and do the same.”
Training as an Olympic athlete is quite different than training to play professional team sports. The four years between Games can become tiresome and lonely for some. There's no game tomorrow night and no game the night after that one. The goal can seem so far away. In an interview with CBC, Oleksiak described her time between Olympics as having gone “from hell and back.” She admits the words are more dramatic than the reality of her most recent journey.
“It was something I said — a lot of people grabbed onto that,” said Oleksiak. “I don't know if it's as dramatic as all that. Like a lot of people, I'm constantly going through different battles. I'm always dealing with something. It makes life exciting.”
Change has made life exciting for her. Oleksiak left Toronto about a year ago for Los Angeles because she needed a change of scenery.
“Toronto is home for me. I'd been there my whole life. I was comfortable there, probably too comfortable. And I always felt safe. I knew where my place was, where my parents were, where my bike rides were, where my friends were.
“A year out is kind of weird time to make a change, but I needed it, I think. It was impulsive. I just packed my car up and drove here. It's been a process, but it's really been fun. L.A. seems a million times bigger than Toronto ... I like being in California. Nobody knows me here. It's cool to be able to walk around and not think about (being Penny).”
Oleksiak has goals set for these Olympics, goals she won't share at this time. She's superstitious that way. “I'll keep that to myself. I know what I want to do and I know what I'm capable of.”
There's something about this that keeps me in it and keeps me going. You're constantly pushing yourself. You're pushing yourself to withhold pain and then more pain and pushing your way through it.