Behold The Child, as Penny Oleksiak flowers in the Brazilian winter

RIO DE JANEIRO - Around Canada’s national swimming team, everyone calls her The Child.   

At least in the water, under the bright lights of the Olympic Aquatic Centre, 16-year-old Penny Oleksiak is growing up fast. Outside it, let’s just say she’s learning, and getting by with a little help from her friends.  

On Saturday, Oleksiak made her open international debut with the most taxing of schedules: three races, and at just after the stroke of midnight she was on the podium sharing a bronze medal with her relay teammates, after she swam the anchor leg of the 4x100 as if she was bringing a hammer down with each stroke.

Less than 24 hours later came the stunning encore. On a Sunday night where the marquee was topped by names like Sjostrom, Ledecky and of course Michael Phelps, warming up for this final Olympic Games with a relay leg and another gold medal, the 23rd Olympic medal of his collection. Off five hours’ sleep and more of nerves, off the backslaps of her Team Canada mates, and off hundreds of Twitter and Instagram likes, it took a world record-setting race from the heavy favourite, Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom, to keep Oleksiak from claiming top spot on the podium.

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On the scale of superhuman from zero to Phelps, she’s two down, 21 to go: Make way for The Child, not quite golden - yet - but certainly gathering serious steam almost as fast as the Olympian bling settles around her neck. But growing up? Ben Titley, the national team coach struggling to keep up with her after Sunday’s race, stopped long enough to suggest otherwise.

“She’s grown up in height, and she’s getting better at managing herself,” said Titley, trying furiously to dampen the swell of interest around his young phenom. “But if you saw some of the things I saw you’d understand.

“She’s still a kid.”

That means back home in Toronto’s Beaches ‘hood, mom Alison has palpitations when The Child’s cellphone bill arrives. The Child shifted to online Grade 10 courses this year, after she entered the high performance stream at Toronto’s Pan Am pool and left the day-to-day of Malvern Collegiate and her friends to concentrate on swimming. Titley wanted to give her a first taste of the big time the world championships, but she took herself out of the running by wiping out on her bicycle and fracturing her elbow. In October, she knocked herself on the head in the pool and came out of it with a concussion.

All of that makes this sudden flowering amid the Brazilian winter more and more remarkable with each day. On Sunday, Sjostrom was the prohibitive favourite in the 100-metre butterfly. Oleksiak was something of an outsider - though she was far, far removed from the 12-year-old flailing around the University of Toronto pool when Titley first set eyes on her, fresh off the boat from England and three Olympics coaching British swimmers.

“This kid was like an aquatic giraffe - long arms, long legs, technique not very good, almost like a Bambi on ice kind of thing,” said Titley.

Not any more. Not after she hit the 50-metre turn in third place, taking a bead on Dane Jeanette Ottesen just in front. Sjostrom wasn’t going to be caught, not ever, and hit the wall in a world record 55.48 seconds. Ottesen faded to the back, struggling to finish eighth and last. Oleksiak just kept going, and at the end was just under a second behind the winner -- and stunned.

While Sjostrom clambered up on to the deck and exalted to the Swedish fans flourishing their blue and gold flags, Oleksiak stayed in the water gathering herself, rolled on her back and blew a kiss to the corner, where her father Richard stood waving, presumably about to burst.

“He was literally the only person I saw in the crowd,” she said. “Everything else was just blurred. And as soon as I saw him, I guess it was just my thank you.”

Coming into this trip, Oleksiak was no longer a project, but still a promise. Now she has two medals in two events and two, perhaps even three races more on her Rio card, starting with Wednesday’s 100-metre freestyle prelims, and another relay. More to the point, she’s now a national figure, and the way she put it those uncharacteristic nerves were at least partly a result.

“I was even shaking in my hotel room,” she said. “I think it was just the fact that the relay medaled and I was like, ‘oh if I don’t medal tonight I’m going to let down Canada. I think that Canada still would’ve had my back even if I didn’t medal, and just knowing that I had that support really helped get rid of my nerves.”

Comfort, peace and liberation were found in a familiar place: inside the Canadian locker room, where her teammates and coaches gave Their Child two liberating words of encouragement that settled her: Have fun.  

And it was fun, and she looked, hopeful and unknowing, up at the scoreboard display.

“I wasn’t really sure that I even medalled until I looked up and I saw the Canadian flags in the air around me,” she said. “I mean, getting to see that and getting to see that you medalled is just an amazing feeling.”

Back home, as she was thanking her dad, the country thanked her back. The Child will grow up someday, but not just yet, not just here.