Taylor Ruck is only 16, but on top of worrying about her next math test and finishing her art project, she’s also working toward her third Olympic medal.
The Kelowna-born swimmer had her first Olympic experience over the summer during the Rio 2016 Games.
While she said she didn’t expect to end up on the podium, she did just that...twice.
"I was mostly there to get the experience, for Tokyo, and the next Olympics after that,” she explained.
Along with her teammates, Sandrine Mainville, Chantal Van Landeghem, and Penny Oleksiak, Ruck helped earn Team Canada its first medal of the Games and bring home the country’s first women’s 4x100m freestyle relay medal in 40 years.
"All of Canada was basically watching. It all became really real for me,” Ruck told KelownaNow when she was in the Okanagan city visiting her grandparents for Christmas.
The teen is no stranger to the area. Although she moved to Arizona with her parents when she was young, she’s been back every summer and Christmas since, training with the Liquid Lightning and Kelowna Aquajets when she's in town.
She may be still be in high school, but she’s had ambitions to be an Olympian all her life, she said.
“It started getting more and more real last year as I went to World Juniors. I was like, Oh my gosh, this is starting to be an actual goal,” she said.
After what she called a scary experience through trials, she found out she would be competing for Canada, a country she had always wanted to represent on the biggest of world stages.
"There are really no words to describe it, you know,” Ruck said. “(An official) told me that I got to go to the Olympics and I was so happy. I ran straight to my parents and I was crying.
“They were so proud of me. It was a very exciting moment in my life.”
The excitement didn’t end there. Just a few months later, they travelled to South America and she hit the pool once again.
Originally brought in to help the people get into finals, the preliminary relay swimmer was pulled up to the big leagues.
"I guess I swam really fast in the morning so they had me go at night and then we got medals, which was just amazing,” said Ruck. "It was cool to make my parents and my whole family proud, and Canada."
Two days later, Ruck and Oleksiak (also 16) were put with Brittany Maclean and Katerine Savard for the 4x200m freestyle race. Once again, they returned a bronze for Team Canada.
"I just had so much fun with all my teammates, also, getting two bronze medals was pretty crazy," Ruck said, laughing.
Young athletes like two-time medalist Ruck and four-time medalist Oleksiak had a successful first Olympics, and they aren’t the only ones.
"There are definitely a lot of young (athletes) on the Canadian team who are starting to get to that world class level,” Ruck said. “I'm excited to see what Team Canada is going to become in a few years.”
Ruck said Rio was the experience of a lifetime, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. In fact, she already has Tokyo 2020 on the brain.
"There is no for sure answer but it's definitely my dream.”
In April, Ruck will head to trials which will qualify her for all the meets in the next year.
"I'm going to try and stay healthy for that and not be as nervous and have more fun,” she said. “That's when I do the best.”
On top of her responsibilities as a world athlete, Ruck said she’s also going to start looking at colleges. She’s only a “junior,” but she already wants to swim at the college level.
While she said she loves art, she mostly keeps that hobby to art class because she has between seven and eight swimming practices a week.
"Sometimes I feel like it kind of defines who I am because I guess it kind of does,” Ruck explained. “It's definitely kind of a defining aspect to my personality.
“It basically is my life.”
Besides putting plenty of time in at the pool, Ruck said she enjoys spending her summer’s at Okanagan Lake on her grandfather’s boat. Since her father grew up here, she said it still means a lot to both of them.
"He has strong roots here so I guess his strong roots kind of lead to my strong roots,” she said. “It's really cool to be able to come back for Christmas and summer and have that sense of home.”
Throughout her swimming career, Ruck said her grandparents in Kelowna have been huge supporters.
"I definitely owe them a lot because they helped me so much. I have such a good support system here.”
If you get value from KelownaNow and believe local independent media is important to our community we ask that you please consider subscribing to our daily newsletter.
If you appreciate what we do, we ask that you consider supporting our local independent news platform.
