Taylor Ruck

Biography

Taylor Ruck is a four-time Olympic medallist from her two Olympic appearances. 

At Tokyo 2020, Ruck swam in the heats of the women’s 4x100m freestyle and 4x100m medley relays, which would win silver and bronze, respectively. She also qualified for her first individual Olympic final, finishing sixth in the 200m backstroke, and came up one spot shy of qualifying for the 100m backstroke final. 

In her Olympic debut at Rio 2016, Ruck won bronze medals with the women’s 4x100m and 4x200m freestyle relay squads, making her and teammate Penny Oleksiak the first ever Olympic medallists born in the 2000s.

Ruck made more history in 2018 when she tied the record for most medals won by an athlete at a single edition of the Commonwealth Games. Her eight medals matched the total of Canadian Ralph Hutton (1966) and Australians Emily Seebohm (2010) and Susie O’Neill (1998). Ruck set a Commonwealth Games record to win gold in the women’s 200m freestyle and won silver medals in the 50m freestyle, 200m backstroke, 4x100m freestyle relay, 4x200m freestyle relay and 4x100m medley relay to go with bronze medals in the 100m freestyle and 100m backstroke.

Later in 2018, Ruck became the first Canadian swimmer to win five medals at a single edition of the Pan Pacific Championships. The big highlight was her victory in the 200m freestyle, in which she swam a championship record time of 1:54.44 to defeat reigning Olympic champion Katie Ledecky of the United States. She also won silver in the 200m backstroke, bronze in the 100m freestyle and bronzes in the 4x100m and 4x200m freestyle relays.

Ruck has won eight medals at the World Aquatics Championships since her debut in 2019.

In her first appearance, she swam in the finals of the women’s 4x100m and 4x200m freestyle relays, helping set Canadian records to win bronze in both. She also swam in the preliminaries for the women’s 4x100m medley relay that would win bronze. Individually, she placed fourth in the 100m backstroke and fifth in the 100m freestyle and 200m backstroke.

In 2022, she won three more relay medals. Ruck swam in the finals for the women’s 4x100m and 4x200m freestyle relays that won silver and bronze, respectively. She also raced in the heats for the mixed 4x100m freestyle relay in which Canada won silver. Individually, she was a finalist in the women’s 200m freestyle.

Ruck earned two more medals at the 2024 World Aquatics Championships, helping the women’s 4x100m freestyle and women’s 4x100m medley relay teams to bronze. She reached yet another individual final, this time in the 50m freestyle.

Despite growing up in Scottsdale, Arizona, where her family moved when she was just a year old, Ruck has wanted to represent Canada since childhood. When her family would visit her grandparents in Kelowna, she and her brother trained with the Aqua Jets, the same team her mother swam for as a teenager, prompting her Canadian dream.

She had her first opportunity to wear the maple leaf at the 2015 World Junior Swimming Championships in Singapore, winning six medals. Ruck won gold in both the 100m freestyle and 200m freestyle, breaking the championship record in both. Two years later, she won five relay gold medals at the 2017 World Juniors as well as a gold in the 200m freestyle and silver in the 100m backstroke. Her 13 career medals made her the most decorated athlete at the world juniors.

A Little More About Taylor

Getting into the Sport: Started swimming lessons at 11 months at Cactus Pool in Scottsdale… Her parents couldn’t keep her away from water; she would happily walk into the deep end of her grandparents’ pool… Started racing competitively in the USA swimming program at age 7… Outside Interests: Attended Stanford University for one year before moving back to Toronto to focus on training for Tokyo 2020… Might like to pursue nursing or biology in future studies… Enjoys making art, reading, exploring…  Odds and Ends: Nickname T-Ruck… Inspired by Missy Franklin because of her talent, hard work, great attitude, and Canadian background… Favourite motto: Never give up…