RIO DE JANEIRO – Swimming Canada's head coach Ben Titley has a pretty straightforward strategy when it comes to keeping Penny Oleksiak relaxed ahead of big races. 

"With her, it's very much about kind of being stupid, to be perfectly honest with you," Titley said. "I speak about Drake or Chance the Rapper or The Weeknd, it's music-based or boy-based, that's my usual way of trying to keep her loose. Not so much embarrassing her, but keeping her laughing, keeping her smiling. I mean, the way I speak to her and the way I speak to a 25-year-old or a 32-year-old is completely different."

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Oleksiak has used the Rio 2016 Olympics as a coming out party. The 16-year-old has won four medals, two in individual races (gold in the 100-metre freestyle and silver in the 100-metre butterfly) and two in relays (bronze in both the 4x100 and 4x200 freestyle). On Thursday night in the 100-metre freestyl,e she tied American Simone Manuel for the title while setting an Olympic record in the process. 

Oleksiak is the first Canadian to win four medals at one Summer Olympics, but what has people so excited is that this is only the start of her story. 

"We see so many young athletes win gold medals in Olympics in all sorts of sports and the challenge is, can they repeat it?" Titley said. "That's what makes Michael Phelps as great as he is, he's done it over a period of four or five Olympic Games. He continually comes into this environment and produces results. That's what we want for Penny Oleksiak. I don't want her to be the Canadian athlete who's won the most medals in a single Games. I want her to win the most medals in all the Olympics. I want her to go for it. I want her to be Canada's best Olympian."

What is Oleksiak's ceiling? 

"Who knows," said a smiling Ryan Cochrane, co-captain of the Canadian Olympic swim squad. "She's 16-years-old and just turned 16. That's very young and I think there's an upside to maybe not having that pressure at that age. She'll definitely feel it post-Games and, hopefully, she learns how to deal with that."

Swimming Canada set modest expectations before these Games believing that, at best, they could walk away from Rio with around four medals. As for Oleksiak, this was about setting things up for the 2020 Games in Tokyo. That was supposed to be her big debut on the big stage.  

"It wasn't so much about expectations as opposed to just learning and development," Titley explained when asked about the plan for Oleksiak in Rio. "I wanted her to observe the best athletes in the world and pick up some of the traits that they exhibit. I wanted her to feel comfortable in this environment, dealing with the media, dealing with slight expectations and pressures. We're fortunate that the expectations and pressures for her coming in were probably more internal in the team as opposed to external throughout all of Canada."

Expectations can balloon in a hurry. Now, there's almost an expectation among Canadian fans that if Oleksiak is swimming, then she's going to be on the podium. 

The Toronto native has a chance to make history on Saturday night in the final session of the Olympic meet. She will be part of Canada's 4x100 medley relay team, which set a new national record and qualified for the final with the second-fastest time during Friday's heats despite Oleksiak’s absence. 

Titley decided to rest Olesiak, who didn't get to bed until 4am following her gold medal win and the whirlwind media obligations that followed. Instead, Oleksiak had a light swim on Friday evening to shake loose any cobwebs and keep her sharp.

"Early to bed tonight," Titley said on Friday afternoon when asked about Oleksiak's final prep. "Hopefully, she gets some real sleep. She has one hand on her phone at the best of times and recently, that's literally glued to her so hopefully we get the phone out of her hand for a little bit, let her sleep a little while."

A fifth medal for Oleksiak would match the all-time record for a Canadian at a single Olympics. Speed skater Cindy Klassen won five at the 2006 Turin Games. Thus far, Oleksiak seems almost oblivious to the magnitude of her accomplishments.  

"I'll be 100 per-cent honest, I hope it never sinks in," said Titley with a wry grin. "I hope that she always understands there's more things she can do better and understanding that celebrity and being known and speaking to the media, with the greatest respect, is irrelevant to swimming performance and, in most cases, is actually a deterrent."

But the hype machine is revving up. Canada has been waiting for a swimming star like this. Oleksiak's gold on Thursday was the country's first gold in an Olympic swimming race since Barcelona 1992 (Mark Tewksbury in the 100-metre backstroke). A Canadian woman hadn't won gold in swimming since the boycotted Los Angeles Games in 1984 (Anne Ottenbrite in the 200-metre breaststroke). 

"We could have only dreamed of this," said Cochrane. "It's been so, so long since we've had a strong women's team. So, to hit the podium five, six times and have an Olympic champion, I mean, it gives you chills. That's what most kids dream about when they start sports and to be able to inspire those next generations to do that is fantastic."

But just how Oleksiak made the leap from wide-eyed up-and-comer to steely-eyed Olympic champion so quickly remains baffling. She appears to have grown up very quickly. 

"We took her to Europe for the first time this summer, she dealt with being away from home for three weeks," said Titley. "She did get homesick and she learned to deal with that, because that's part of being an elite athlete, not quite on the level of the Blue Jays being away from home in their season, but for a 16-year-old girl, there are all these sorts of challenges. Being here with different foods that might not be food that you like, the buses might not turn up on time here and they don't. Really, it's just an experience in handling yourself in an arena where it's not always who can swim the fastest, but who can manage themselves the best."

Oleksiak is 6-foot-1 and still growing. Like others in her family – older brother, Jamie, is an NHL defenceman, while sister, Hayley, is a NCAA rower at Northeastern – she has been blessed with amazing genes. She's built to swim and swim fast. And she can still go much faster.

Earlier in the Olympics, Oleksiak said she's still finding her way in the pool, still getting comfortable in the water. That's why the feeling is her potential is limitless. If she can do this as a teenager, where will she be in a few years? 

"I mean, she's 16-years-old, just turned 16 so there's a natural progression in terms of development, strength and size," Titley said when asked where Oleksiak has made the biggest strides of late. 

Swimming Canada is determined to make sure Oleksiak fulfils her destiny and that means keeping her grounded. Titley was quick to point out that Oleksiak will be back in school in a couple weeks. 

"Nothing changes," he said. "She still has to do her homework, still has to learn how to drive at some point."

But it will be a new type of normal for Oleksiak, who has inspired older teammates like Kylie Masse, who won bronze in the 100-metre backstroke, and Hilary Caldwell, who won bronze in the 200-metre backstroke on Friday night.

"We've had such an amazing week," said Cochrane, who will wrap up his distinguished Olympic career by racing in the 1,500-metre finals on Saturday. "Watching Penny win a gold medal was just one of the best feelings in the world for Canadians and we're going to use that as motivation."

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For many years, it was Cochrane carrying the torch for Canada's swim team, winning silver in London and bronze in Beijing. His eight medals at the FINA World Championships are the most ever by a Canadian. But Cochrane was excelling during a downtime for Canadian swimming. The Rio Games are showing the corner has been turned.  

"It's mind-blowing," said Cochrane when asked about Oleksiak's impact. "Once someone does it, hopefully that means that we have the ability to have lots of people do that."