{"id":479397,"date":"2021-06-22T16:37:23","date_gmt":"2021-06-22T23:37:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=479397"},"modified":"2021-06-23T04:21:47","modified_gmt":"2021-06-23T11:21:47","slug":"canadian-olympic-trials-penny-oleksiak-throws-down-52-89-100-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/canadian-olympic-trials-penny-oleksiak-throws-down-52-89-100-free\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian Olympic Trials: Reigning Olympic Champ Penny Oleksiak Rips 52.89 100 Free"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canadian Olympic Trials: Reigning Olympic Champ Penny Oleksiak Rips 52.89 100 Free<\/strong><\/p>\n

Penny Oleksiak<\/strong> has been gotten messages during Canadian Olympic Trials wondering where she is.<\/p>\n

Partially, that\u2019s because there\u2019s no \u201cPenny\u201d on the heat sheets. Instead, the swimmer whose mental focus has been on returning to the mindset of a relative unknown rather than an Olympic champion, is listed as \u201cPenelope.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s just fine, since Penelope Oleksiak is swimming about as fast as Penny Oleksiak ever has.<\/p>\n

Oleksiak re-entered rarefied air in the women\u2019s 100 free Tuesday night, getting back under 53 seconds to win the event in 52.89. The time is the third-fastest in the world in 2021, and it\u2019s near the 52.70 that Oleksiak used in Rio to tie for the gold medal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt honestly just gives me a massive boost of confidence that I think I\u2019ve been searching for a little bit,\u201d Oleksiak said on a post-meet Zoom call. \u201cI\u2019ve been having good races when we do our time trials and I\u2019ve been in the 53s, which is pretty rare for me in-season. To come to this meet not fully tapered and have that competitive edge again and have those girls to race against, I think it really pushed me and gave me that confidence for Tokyo.\u201d<\/p>\n