Do we like Penny Oleksiak?
Our score: 7 out of 10. A decent record and a two-year ban for admin slips she accepted, but the record on people and the planet is thin.
Penny Oleksiak was born in Scarborough, Ontario, and learned to swim at nine in a neighbour's pool. Two Toronto clubs turned her down before she landed at the Olympian Swimming Club. Not a bad pivot, given what came next.
At Rio 2016 she became the youngest Canadian to win Olympic gold and the first Canadian to win four medals at one Summer Games. She added three more at Tokyo, which makes seven in total, and nine world championship medals. She also took the Lou Marsh Trophy for 2016.
Paris 2024 was tougher. She missed the individual events and her two relay teams finished fourth. Then came the big one: in November 2025 the International Testing Agency announced she had accepted a two-year ban for three whereabouts failures, which means missed or late updates on where she'd be for drug testing.
She was not found to have used any banned substance, and she has said the case was about whether she updated her information. In December she said she had changed her training time without updating her app, and called it a “Genuine mistake”. She also said “Updating my whereabouts was my responsibility, and I didn't do it. I own that.” Owning it is the right move, but the rule is the rule.
On the harm test, we searched for anything she's said or done about LGBTQ+ people, women, race, migrants, vaccines or the climate and found nothing harmful. She mostly keeps to swimming. That's a pass, but a thin one, because silence isn't the same as a track record.
The good stuff is real, if modest. She's a WE Charity ambassador and in 2017 helped launch the student program “WE are Canada”. She was also featured in the Museum of Toronto's 2025 exhibit honouring 52 women who shaped the city.