Canada's 16-year-old prodigy, swimmer Penny Oleksiak established her reputation as one of Canada's premier athletes at Rio Olympics. Her performance even overshadowed the American swimmer Simone Manuel's achievement who made headlines becoming the first African-American woman to win an Olympic gold in swimming.
Oleksiak and Manuel, both won the gold by setting a new Olympic record of 52.70 seconds for 100-meter freestyle after a tie. Oleksiak also made history by becoming the first athlete born in the twenty-first century to have won an Olympic gold medal, the Toronto Star reported.
The Toronto-born swimmer was on the seventh place at the halfway turn and went on to finish first place to become the first Canadian athlete to win four medals at Olympics -- a feat she managed to achieve in her very first appearance at the Games.
Oleksiak now is sure to cement her place among Canada's best female athletes; with the likes of hockey player Hayley Wickenheiser, who has represented her country at five consecutive Olympics and has won seven world titles and diver Jennifer Abel, who happens to be the youngest Canadian diver to ever compete at the Olympics. The feat she achieved during 2008 Games. She has won five world championship medals apart from her record, BBC reported.
Oleksiak whose astounding performance has placed her into the vanguard of international swimming scene, who is touted to claim the title of Canada's greatest female athlete.
The gold for Canada in 100-meter swimming came 24 years after Mark Tewksbury won the 100-meter gold in Barcelona Game. He was the youngest gold medalist at that time in the Canadian sports history.
Oleksiak's medals in Rio includes a silver in the 100m butterfly and two bronze medals in the 4x100 meter and 4x200 meter freestyle relays.
Oleksiak's former assistant coach,Dave Ling at Toronto Swim Club said that she only began a year and a half back to swim the 100 fly at a very serious level. "Using the word prodigy to describe her that is very accurate to what she is," Lind said.