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.
Former Member
Dara went a 22.6 when she was a 16 year old struggling with anorexia. This is hardly surprising. It is fun to imagine what she would have been had she trained properly in her prime.
Okay, Jane you’re crazy.:dunno:
I have not analyzed Dara’s training regime from 20 years ago and today, so I can’t really comment about any changes she has made to account for the improvement. However, if you look at 50 times for elite swimmers in general, you may notice that there has been a marked drop in records and overall performance. This is frequently attributed to greater focus on weight training and technique.
Are Dara and her coaches taking advantages of the advances in training? I’d hope so, or she should fire her coach.
Is it OK to inject or ingest a performance enhancing substance just because it isn't banned YET?
Do you have any performance enhancing substance in mind? As a matter of full disclosure, I readily admit that I ingest performance enhancing substances that have not yet been banned. I often drink water and eat food. Both of these are proven performance enhancers.
Pro-Dara??? I prefer to believe I have a presumption of innocence. Just because a swimmer is fast, doesn’t mean he or she cheats. Maybe they are just working hard.
However if you or anyone has evidence of cheating, then it should be brought forward. Cheating should not be tolerated and neither should making spurious accusations.
I agree wholeheartedly with you Rob! Here is a woman who is a role model for females of all ages. :bow:
Even as a new mother, it probably isn't too big a deal to carve out two hours a day to train.
Ooh, gotta disagree with THAT one. I don't care how elite, talented, or determined you are, 2 hours is a huge chunk of time you are not with your baby. However, if they sleep the same two hours every day... :lmao:
Yea, right. It's all about priorities isn't it?
And BTW, I thought Jenny looked far more flustered when Dara showed up, not the other way around.
I talked to Dara during the 2004 Olympic trials. She has always been one of the most beautiful women swimmers of all time.
But she made it clear to me that although she does weights, her stretching program is what makes her fast. I still have the card from her stretching guru somewhere, he was going to write a book.
Stretching has really come forwards to complement weight training.
