Penny Oleksiak

Before the Olympics, Oleksiak had risen to 49th in the 100-metre freestyle rankings and 37th in the 100-metre butterfly, and the Canadian Tire analysts appointed her to possibly win a medal in Rio.

Oleksiak's leg time of 1:54.94 was the 4th fastest in the field after the three medallists of the 200 m freestyle.

On day six, Oleksiak was seventh at the 50-metre turn of the 100 m freestyle, and eventually surged for a gold medal finish, tied with Simone Manuel and setting an Olympic record of 52.70.

Penelope Oleksiak (born June 13, 2000) is a Canadian competitive swimmer.

She was the first athlete born in the 2000s to claim an Olympic gold medal in an individual event.

She is also the first athlete born in the 2000s to win an individual Olympic gold.

Oleksiak is the youngest Canadian to become an Olympic champion, the first to win four Summer Olympics medals in the same edition, and has the second most medals of the country in a single edition after Cindy Klassen in the 2006 Winter Olympics.

Widely considered the face of a resurgent Canadian women's swimming team in the 2010s, Oleksiak is also Canada's most decorated athlete at the World Aquatics Championships, and a multi-medallist at the World Swimming Championships, World Junior Championships, and Commonwealth Games.

She is the current junior world and Canadian record holder in the 100 m freestyle, and formerly held the world junior and Canadian records in the 100 m butterfly, as well as the Olympic record in the 100 m freestyle alongside Simone Manuel.

After learning to swim at a neighbour's pool, Oleksiak took up the sport at the age of 9 encouraged by her father.

She had also taken up gymnastics and competitive dance.

Oleksiak attempted to join several swim clubs in Toronto, but was rejected due to having trouble swimming the length of pool.

She was eventually taken in by coach Gary Nolden at the Toronto Olympian Swim Team, where she gained the foundation that started her swimming career.

Oleksiak said, "The coach there really helped me. He had a lot of faith in me. If I hadn't gone to that club, I don't think I would be where I am today."

Within a year, a race by Oleksiak at the University of Toronto drew the attention of coach Ben Titley, who would go on to lead Canada's Olympic team.

Titley would begin working with her, sporadically at first, then on a monthly and weekly basis.

As a 14-year-old at the 2014 Canadian Age Group Championships, Oleksiak won 10 individual medals, five gold, three silver and two bronze, setting a personal best in each and every race, and then tacked on three relay golds.

First indications of great potential for Oleksiak were identified when, six weeks after fracturing her elbow in a cycle accident, she was still able to win six medals at the 2015 FINA World Junior Swimming Championships.

This included a gold in the mixed 4 × 100 m freestyle relay; silver in her signature 100 m freestyle event; silver in the 50 and 100 m butterfly; a silver in the 4 × 200 m relay and a bronze in the 4 × 100 m freestyle events.

Her country's most decorated Olympian, 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.

Her success led to her being awarded the 2016 Lou Marsh Trophy as Canada's top athlete, the Bobbie Rosenfeld Award as Canada's top female athlete for 2016, and a member of the Canadian Press team of the year.

Her next goal was to qualify for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro as part of the Canadian national team; there she set the Junior world record in qualifying for the 100 m freestyle.

After winning the race she said "being able to get the world junior record means quite a bit to me".

Oleksiak also beat Chantal Van Landeghem's Canadian record in the process; Van Landeghem joined Oleksiak in the 100 and 4 × 100 m freestyle events for the Olympics.

Oleksiak also set the Canadian and World Junior records in the 100 m butterfly en route to the Olympics in that event.

Oleksiak would compete for Canada's swimming team at the Rio 2016 Olympics in five races.

Her competition began on day one.

In the heats of the 100 m butterfly, she broke the national record and world junior record with a time of 56.73 on her way to the semi-finals.

Oleksiak also anchored the final leg of the women's 4×100 m freestyle relay team with Taylor Ruck, Chantal Van Landeghem, Sandrine Mainville, and Michelle Williams with the latter only swimming in the heat.

In the final of the relay event she held on to the third position against the United States and Australia, winning Canada's first Olympic medal in the women's freestyle relay in 40 years.

After the race, the 16-year-old said, "No one really expected this of Canada coming into the meet, but now that we are here, people are going to be surprised at what we do."

The next night she competed in the 100 m butterfly final.

Oleksiak started out fast, touching the halfway wall in third before finishing characteristically strong in second place, winning the silver medal.

She again bettered her world junior record and Canadian record in the 100 m butterfly in the process.

Oleksiak became the first Canadian to ever win a medal on each of the first two days of the Olympics.

With the win she exclaimed that "I'm just happy that I made Canada proud and getting to look up into the stands and find my parents, it's just amazing for me and it's such a great feeling."

Returning to the pool on day five, Oleksiak again had a record breaking qualifier followed by a relay medal.

She broke the world junior record of the 100 m freestyle with 52.72, the second fastest time of the qualifying heats, and anchored the 4×200 m freestyle relay, again winning the bronze (along with Katerine Savard, Taylor Ruck, and Brittany MacLean).

Five years later she won three additional medals at the 2020 Summer Olympics, breaking the national record for Olympic medals.

Extra investments came as the data analytics division of Canadian Tire appointed Oleksiak, whose top FINA ranking at the time was 319th, as a possible Olympic medallist in the 2020 Summer Games.