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Oleksiak rose to fame during the 2016 Summer Olympics, where she became the first Canadian to win four medals in the same Summer Games, and the country's youngest Olympic champion with her gold medal win in the 100 m freestyle.
- Family
- Early Swimming Career
- Breaking Youth Records
- 2016 Olympic Games
- Continued Success
- Mental Health Struggles
- Return to Competitive Swimming
- 2020 Olympic Summer Games
- Charitable Work
- Honours and Awards
Penny Oleksiak is the youngest of five children (including brothers Jake and Jamie and sisters Hayley and Claire) in the family of engineerAlison Oleksiak and writer Richard Oleksiak. The Oleksiak family is very athletic. Richard, who is 6-foot-9 and of Polish background, played football and basketball and competed in track and field at Nichols Sch...
Penny Oleksiak learned to swim at age nine in a neighbour’s backyard pool. When she told her parents that she enjoyed swimming, they encouraged her to swim competitively. She first tried out for the Toronto Swim Club and the Scarborough Swim Club but was rejected from both because she had difficulty swimming the required two lengths of the pool. Ho...
By age 12, Oleksiak was training out of the Toronto Swim Club under head coach Bill O’Toole. In 2013, she set an Ontario record for 11- to 12-year-old girls in the 100 m backstroke, with a time of 1:07.04. That year, Oleksiak drew the attention of Ben Titley, who had just become head coach of the Swimming Canada High Performance Centre – Ontario. (...
At 15 years old, the 6-foot-2 Oleksiak was the youngest Canadian swimmer to qualify for the 2016 Olympic Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro. She had a strong season leading up to the Games; she won the gold medal in the women’s 100 m freestyle at both an event in Charlotte, North Carolina, and at another in Canet-en-Roussillon, France. The Rio Olympics...
In December 2016, Oleksiak won four medals at the World Short Course Swimming Championships in Windsor, Ontario. (In short course competitions, the length of the pool is 25 m instead of 50 m.) She took gold in the women’s 4x50 m freestyle relay and in the women’s 4x200 m freestyle relay, silver in the women’s 4x100 m medley relay and bronze in the ...
In 2017, Oleksiak suffered a concussion and injured her shoulder. She was unable to win an individual swimming medal throughout the year and took some time away from the pool following the 2018 Commonwealth Games. During this time, she also endured the death of her grandmother. Oleksiak’s mother Alison believed Penny was “getting overwhelmed” and n...
When Oleksiak returned to high-performance competitive swimming, she achieved success in team events. At the 2019 World Aquatics Swimming Championships in Gwangju, South Korea, Oleksiak swam on the teams that won bronze medals in the women’s 4x100 m freestyle relay, the women’s 4x200 m freestyle relay, and the women’s 4x100 m medley relay. In the p...
The 2020 Olympic Summer Games in Tokyowere delayed one full year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so Oleksiak had more time to prepare and be in elite form. She came away with three Olympic medals: silver in the women’s 4x100 m freestyle relay (with Sanchez, Smith, Maggie Mac Neil and Taylor Ruck of Kelowna); bronze in the women’s 4x100 m medley relay...
Oleksiak is an ambassador for WE Charity (formerly Free the Children). (See also Craig Kielburger.) In January 2017, Oleksiak helped launch the “WE are Canada” program designed to help students “explore Canadian issues, build leadership skills and create an action plan to help them shape the future of Canada and the world.”
Female Swimmer of the Year Award, Swimming Canada (2016)Jun 20, 2024 · Clearly, it’s worked for her: Oleksiak is Canada’s most decorated Olympian, becoming Canada’s youngest Olympic gold medal winner when she was just 16, winning four medals in Rio followed by three more in Tokyo.
With Oleksiak leading the way, adding a silver in the 100-m butterfly and chipping in for another bronze in the 4 x 200 free, Canada’s swim team left Rio with a total of six medals. That’s two...
Jul 23, 2024 · When Canadian swimmer Penny Oleksiak felt stuck during her Olympic journey to Paris, she figured out how to get unstuck. "I've had a very trying last couple years ," she says.
Apr 10, 2016 · With seven Olympic medals, Penny Oleksiak is Canada’s all-time most decorated Olympian. Oleksiak had a record-setting Olympic debut at Rio 2016 on several fronts. The 16-year-old became the first Canadian athlete to win four medals at a single summer Games.
Jul 28, 2021 · Standing there right after becoming Canada’s most-decorated Summer Olympian, Penny Oleksiak has to give some real thought to why she’s so good at the Games.
