Canadian Penny Oleksiak won a gold medal in the women’s 100-metre freestyle Thursday night.
Oleksiak was in seventh place at the turn but poured it on in the final 50 metres of an extremely tight race. So tight in fact that Oleksiak and Simone Manuel of the United States tied an Olympic record time of 52.70 seconds and both earned the gold. Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom took bronze.
The 16-year-old has now won four medals at Rio 2016. She won silver in the women’s 100-metre butterfly and helped Canada to two bronze medals in the women’s 4×200-metre and 4×100-metre freestyle relays.
Oleksiak also set a record by becoming the youngest Canadian gold medallist in Olympics history — this includes Winter Olympics.
“This is amazing, to tie for a gold. I never thought I’d win a gold,” Oleksiak told reporters in Brazil. “[Manuel] deserves it as much as me. It means so much.
“I definitely knew the pressure was on to try and I guess make history and get four medals. But it wasn’t something I was trying to think about before my race, I was just trying to think about swimming as fast as I could and to be happy with whatever outcome.”
The last Canadian prior to Oleksiak to win an Olympic gold medal for a swimming event was Mark Tewksbury, who took first place in the men’s 100-metre backstroke back in 1992.
With files from The Canadian Press
