Penny Oleksiak recently went out for dinner in Toronto, and a few things happened when the restaurant owner spotted the six-foot-one kid who owns four Olympic medals.
First, he cleared a table up front. Then, he sat Oleksiak and her friend—a former swimmer, and world record holder—at a spot by the window. And when the meal was over, he wouldn’t let her pay, despite her attempt to convince him otherwise.
Yes, the towering high school student who won the most medals ever for Canada in a single Summer Games earlier this year is getting recognized nearly everywhere she goes, and she’s getting star treatment, too.
“Things like that sort of make you realize, ‘Oh, wow, that’s a bit different for a 16-year-old,’” says her coach, Ben Titley. “We’re lucky at the moment that she’s almost naive enough that it doesn’t affect her too much.”
Titley calls Oleksiak’s popularity “pretty crazy.”
And it’s going to come to a full boil in Windsor, Ont., this week: Canada’s biggest swimming star is competing at home.
Beginning Tuesday, the Grade 11 student will be swimming in her first competitive race in Canada since she won gold, silver and two bronze in Rio. The FINA short-track world swimming championships is her first meet on home soil since she became the youngest summer Olympic gold medallist in Canadian history. It’s Oleksiak’s first real race in Canada since she became the most decorated Canadian at a Summer Games, and since she set an Olympic record when she tied for gold in the 100m freestyle in Rio.
But in Windsor—an event that has an extra-Canadian feel: the pool is the Spitfires’ hockey rink, transformed—Oleksiak is going to have a very different role compared to Rio. Titley asked her to pick one individual race (she went with the 100m freestyle; the semis and finals go Thursday) and otherwise she’ll play a supporting role on various relay teams, swimming in the heats.
“In Rio, a big part of her being able to achieve what she achieved was because other people stepped up for her and raced in the heats, so Penny didn’t have to,” Titley says. Of the three Olympic relays, Oleksiak swam only in the finals of each so she could conserve her energy.
“Here is almost a flip 180,” he says. “She’ll be ready to swim any heat, even in relays we have no chance in. It teaches her to understand how much other people did for her to achieve her success.”
Speaking of success: Titley says he has “zero expectations” for Oleksiak at this meet. It’s not a priority, partly because it’s a short-course—the pool measures 25m, versus the 50m length used in every major event.
Were this meet not in Canada, Titley says Oleksiak probably wouldn’t be in the field.
“It’s not a pool that suits young people, usually it’s older, stronger people,” he explains. “She’s going to be challenged in this competition. From that side of things, I do not expect her to win.”
But he’s not dismissing that possibility, either.
“If she does her best, who knows? We didn’t expect her to win at the Olympics, and she did.”
The coach stresses the focus isn’t on swimming at her maximum speed these days, either. They’ll be gearing up for world championships next summer in Budapest, but for now, it’s about trying to get back some semblance of normalcy after becoming the country’s story last summer.
“In terms of her swimming crazy fast and winning gold medals, that really isn’t the plan for now,” Titley says. “As crazy as that might sound, that’s not the biggest thing in her life.
“The biggest thing is that she becomes comfortable with being who she now is in terms of being recognized. Arguably, she’s one of Canada’s most recognizable sports people, maybe—certainly most recognizable young one. That comes with a lot of things that are challenging for a young person to deal with.”
Getting good grades and hanging out with her friends at Monarch Park Collegiate is what Oleksiak has been focused on the last few months. And Titley and the Canadian team sure aren’t treating Oleksiak any differently at practice, either. She doesn’t get star treatment in the pool.
“She’s still a 16-year-old kid, her nickname is still ‘The child.’ She’s treated the exact same as everybody else, if not harsher than everybody else, because we’re still trying to make sure she stays in line,” Titley says.
“No one bothers her at the pool when she’s there, for autographs and photos. She can just come and be herself and train.”
When she steps out of the pool, though, that’s another story. “This girl walks outside of the swimming poolside, she goes out into the venue, she’ll get stopped and asked for autographs,” Titley says. “It’s incredible, really.”
And, who knows, if Oleksiak tries to buy a meal in Windsor this week, it might even be on the house.
