Now tied for most medals won by a Summer Olympian, the 21-year-old is well on her way to being one of Canada’s greatest athletes
When she turned, third. And by the time she touched the wall, second.“I just knew I wasn’t going to touch third,” Oleksiak said afterward. “When I make a decision through a race, I have to execute it.” Oleksiak, still a preposterously young 21, was already one of the great Canadian Olympians. Winning her fifth Summer Games medal – tied with two others for most ever – makes her one of Canada’s greatest closers, Olympic or otherwise.
Before Rio, when no one was watching, Oleksiak hadn’t done much of note. No Olympic previews mentioned her. No one on Team Canada hyped her chances.Between Rio and Tokyo, the same thing, though not quite as anonymous. Oleksiak was intermittently injured. She won some medals at important competitions, but was nowhere close to as impactful as she had been for a week in Brazil. In fairness, she was a little busy growing up.
Mac Neil swam her specialty, the 100 m butterfly, before the relay final. She’ll swim the butterfly tomorrow, with a gold medal sight. It’s a lot of high-performance swimming under a lot of pressure in a short period of time.She has two more events here in Tokyo – the 100 and 200 m individual freestyle. Coming into this thing, she wasn’t particularly fancied in either of them.
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