Penny Oleksiak Canadian Swimmer Born 2000 in Scarborough

Early life

Penelope "Penny" Oleksiak was born on 13 June 2000 in Scarborough, Ontario. She learned to swim at a neighbour's pool and began competing at the age of nine, encouraged by her father. She also tried gymnastics and competitive dance. Several Toronto clubs turned her away at first because she struggled to swim a full length of the pool, but coach Gary Nolden accepted her at the Toronto Olympian Swim Team, which she later described as the foundation of her career. She attended Monarch Park Collegiate Institute in Toronto until the end of the 2016-17 school year.

At the 2014 Canadian Age Group Championships she won ten individual medals and three relay golds, setting a personal best in every race. Soon afterwards coach Ben Titley, who later led Canada's Olympic program, began working with her.

Career

Six weeks after fracturing an elbow in a cycling accident, Oleksiak won six medals at the 2015 World Junior Swimming Championships. At the 2016 Olympic trials she set a world junior record in the 100 metre freestyle, along with a Canadian record, and also set junior and national records in the 100 metre butterfly.

At the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro she raced five times and won four medals: bronze in the 4x100 metre freestyle relay, silver in the 100 metre butterfly, bronze in the 4x200 metre freestyle relay, and gold in the 100 metre freestyle, where she tied with Simone Manuel in an Olympic record time of 52.70 seconds. At 16 she became Canada's youngest Olympic champion and the first Canadian to win four medals at one Summer Games. She was also the first athlete born in the 2000s to win an individual Olympic gold, and she carried the Canadian flag at the closing ceremony. In December 2016, at the short course world championships in Windsor, Ontario, she added a bronze, two relay golds and a silver.

Injuries limited her 2017 season, but she won two bronze medals in mixed relays at the World Aquatics Championships. In 2018 she won three relay silvers at the Commonwealth Games, then chose to skip the Pan Pacific Championships to rest, saying the attention after Rio had weighed on her. In 2019 she swam for Energy Standard in the inaugural International Swimming League, whose team won the title in Las Vegas.

At the Tokyo Olympics, held in 2021, she won silver in the 4x100 metre freestyle relay, bronze in the 200 metre freestyle, and bronze in the 4x100 metre medley relay. With seven Olympic medals in total, she became the most decorated Summer Olympian in Canadian history. In 2022 she won medals at the World Aquatics Championships in several relays, including silver in the women's 4x100 metre freestyle relay, a first for Canadian women at those championships. She then underwent knee surgery after a meniscus tear and later withdrew from the 2023 world championships, and she moved her training base to Mission Viejo, California.

In 2024 she returned to competition. She won the 100 metre freestyle at the national trials but missed the individual Olympic standard, and was named to the relays. At the Paris Olympics she swam in the 4x100 metre freestyle relay, in which Canada finished fourth, and anchored the 4x100 metre freestyle team to bronze at the 2024 World Aquatics Swimming Championships. In November 2025 she received a two-year suspension, backdated to July 2025, for anti-doping rule violations involving whereabouts failures. She is eligible to return on 14 July 2027.

Recognition

For her 2016 results, Oleksiak received the Lou Marsh Trophy as Canada's top athlete and the Bobbie Rosenfeld Award as the country's female athlete of the year, and she was named CBC's athlete of the year. She was also part of the Canadian Press team of the year. She is nicknamed "Magic Penny" and counts among Canada's most decorated Olympians. At 186 centimetres tall, she specialises in freestyle and butterfly sprint events, and her best known performances have come in relays.

Public roles

In 2020 she became the first female global ambassador for Phelps Brand, a swim gear company co-founded by Michael Phelps, whom she has called a valuable mentor.