Since I am in the Dixie Zone, I was perusing the results of meets this weekend and saw that Dara Torres, who turned 40 on Sunday, went 21.91 in the 50 free and 48.34 in the 100 free this weekend in St. Petersburg this past weekend. I guess that she is serious about this comeback. It will be interesting to see how she can do long course.
Since I was at Y Nationals, I looked up results to see how she would have done against the men. There was one 31 yo who was faster in both the 50 and 100 and a 45 yo who was faster in the 100 by a small amount. Pretty incredible.
If a younger person felt they deserve the spot, then they should trainer harder to earn it.
Amen.
Sure, Dara will potentially take the spot of a younger swimmer - she'll be the oldest one there. BUT, with the plethora of elite, professional athletes succeeding well into their 40s (baseball: roger clemens, randy johnson, barry bonds; football: darrell green retired at 42 a few years back, morten andersen is ~46 and still kicking field goals), seeing Dara make TWO successful comebacks at her "advanced" age should be very humbling and enlightening to these kids.
So what if they can't make the cut in 2008. Provided Dara makes it, there are 5 more Games a 20-year-old "kid" has a shot at based on Dara's experience (we know at least 4). Or if they're really desparate for immediate results, they can move to Qatar.
If a younger person felt they deserve the spot, then they should trainer harder to earn it.
Amen.
Sure, Dara will potentially take the spot of a younger swimmer - she'll be the oldest one there. BUT, with the plethora of elite, professional athletes succeeding well into their 40s (baseball: roger clemens, randy johnson, barry bonds; football: darrell green retired at 42 a few years back, morten andersen is ~46 and still kicking field goals), seeing Dara make TWO successful comebacks at her "advanced" age should be very humbling and enlightening to these kids.
So what if they can't make the cut in 2008. Provided Dara makes it, there are 5 more Games a 20-year-old "kid" has a shot at based on Dara's experience (we know at least 4). Or if they're really desparate for immediate results, they can move to Qatar.
