After taking the top seed in the 100m butterfly this morning and closing in on Katerine Savard’s Canadian record, 15-year-old Penny Oleksiak brought the heat once more in order to smash the Canadian record and secure her spot on her first Olympic team.
In a come-from-behind fashion Oleksiak passed both Noemie Thomas and Katerine Savard in order to touch the wall in 56.99, taking 0.28 seconds off Savard’s Canadian record and claiming gold. Oleksiak’s racing strategy mimicked a 2008 Phelps, coming from behind to win the race by just 0.03 seconds over Noemie Thomas’ 57.02.
The time ranks the new Canadian record holder as the third fastest swimmer this season in the event behind only world record holder Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden and China’s Xinyi Chen.
2015-2016 LCM Women 100 FLY
SJOSTROM
55.48 *WR*OR
| 2 | Penny OLEKSIAK | CAN | 56.46 *WJR | 08/07 |
| 3 | Kelsi WORRELL | USA | 56.48 | 06/27 |
| 4 | Dana VOLLMER | USA | 56.56 | 08/06 |
| 5 | Xinyi Chen | CHN | 56.72 | 08/07 |
In just one day Oleksiak took a total of 1.45 seconds off her personal best time – showing that she’s on her game at Trials which suggests she could qualify in multiple events.
Oleksiak will be swimming the 50, 100 and 200m freestyles later in the competition. The 100m freestyle is her best event out of the three where she has the biggest shot at earning another spot on the Olympic team.
Oleksiak will need to finish in the top four in order to get a relay spot, and top two and under the FINA ‘A’ standard to make the team individually.
i feel like they have a shot in both medley and freestyle relays at the olympics
It’s not all of the sudden, they were good in 2012, just got even better since then.
Its really surprising how good canadian women became all of a sudden, the same is true for canadian athletics …
If she chooses CAL, I might cry..
As I said on here recently – Ben Titley has transformed Canadian sprinting on the women’s side. His girls are flying. Michelle Williams, Van Landeghem, Oleksiak and Mainville… He could have four ladies under 54 this week… All have made huge strides under him. He guided Halsall & Tancock to their 2009 peaks too.
Superb & underrated coach… Such a loss for British Swimming.
so thats a new WJR right??
Not even close.
If she has the same time drop in her 100 free, she will swim 53 low!
56.98 at 15. That’s impressive. Oleksiak is a name to remember.
And very high level final with Thomas second in 57.02.
Should she stay in Canada or swim NCAA and train under great coaching of Stanford/CAL/Georgia/Florida/USC?