Bronze medallist Penny Oleksiak of Canada poses with her medal during the victory ceremony for the ladies' 200m freestyle final at Tokyo Aquatics Centre
Oleksiak was told swimming would get her nowhere
Sergei BobylevTASS via Getty Images
  • Canada's most decorated Summer Olympian mocked an old teacher who told her to stop swimming.
  • Penny Oleksiak says she was told by the unnamed teacher that swimming "wouldn't get me anywhere."
  • With one gold, one silver, and two bronze, Oleksiak has more medals than any other Canadian.
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An Olympic swimmer has publicly shamed a former high school teacher for telling her the sport "wouldn't get me anywhere."

Having competed at the Tokyo Olympics, and become the most decorated Canadian athlete in Olympic history, Penny Oleksiak took to Twitter to shame and sarcastically thank the teacher, who she didn't name.

"I just googled 'Canada's most decorated Olympian' and my name came up.

"I want to thank that teacher in high school who told me to stop swimming to focus on school because swimming wouldn't get me anywhere. This is what dreams are made of."

Oleksiak later clarified that she meant no disrespect to teachers in general, but that she was singling out a teacher she described as the "WOAT," meaning "worst of all time."

"Also in reference to my last tweet, no shade at all towards teachers in general, my sister is a teacher and I see her inspiring kids everyday.

"Most of my teachers saw the vision and pushed me towards it. That one who constantly dragged me down though, WOAT."

The 21-year-old won three medals at the Tokyo Olympics including two bronze and one silver.

She collected the second-place prize in the 4x100 meter freestyle and her bronzes came in the 200 meter freestyle and the 4x100 meter medley.

Oleksiak is also a gold medalist having won in the 100 meter freestyle at Rio 2016. Those four prizes make her the Canadian Summer Olympian with the greatest number of medals.

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