Penny Oleksiak: 2x Olympic Medallist Or Creator Of The Swimmers Dougie?

While Penny Oleksiak is becoming a household name across Canada for the two Olympic medals she’s earned at the 2016 Rio Olympics, here real fame came three years before when she created the “swimmers’ dougie.”

Three-years-ago, before Oleksiak was chasing anything besides national age group records, her sister Hayley recorded a video of the then 13-year-old creating a swimmers’ version of the dance that goes along with the song “teach me how to dougie.”

Almost as if calling her Olympic future, Oleksiak is seen rocking two medals around her neck and saying, “how did those get there?”

Could the “swimmers’ dougie” be her secret to success over the past three season? Nobody knows for sure.

Countless age group records led Oleksiak to move her training from the Toronto Swim Club to the High Performance Centre – Ontario where she prepared for the Canadian Olympic Trials with coach Ben Titley.

This past April, she qualified for three individual events and one relay, however dropped the 200m freestyle. Oleksiak broke the junior world record in the 100m butterfly at trials, a mark she would better at the Olympics.

In the heats of the 100 fly, Oleksiak bettered her 56.99 record with a 56.73. Later that night she helped Canada win their first Olympic medal of the games, taking bronze in the 4x100m freestyle relay.

Less than 24-hours later, Oleksiak stepped up for the finals of the 100m butterfly and at just 16, won her first Olympic medal. She took down defending Olympic champion Dana Vollmer in order to grab the silver behind world record holder Sarah Sjostrom, and once again break her world record.

Her performances have rocketed here to stardom in Canada over night, although we at SwimSwam still credit her fame to creating the “swimmers’ dougie.” Check out the video above.