Dara Torres-Amazing

The poor fellow he must have been lonely. In 1964 I saw my wife for one week out of 15 weeks during the race season. Some times we have to give up some pleasures to compete. Here is the quote that got me (from the NYT article on Torres): Driving home one night from a sushi dinner, Torres’s partner, David Hoffman, admitted that he’ll be relieved when Torres emerges from her Olympic training tunnel. “We don’t spend as much time together,” he told me as he idled his car outside their home. “We can’t go on a vacation.” Torres had driven home separately with Tessa. Hoffman watched the swimmer standing in their driveway at dusk, her mind clearly turned toward getting Tessa to bed, so that she could get nine hours of sleep herself. “I can’t wait until this is over,” Hoffman sighed. “It’ll have been two years.” Surely one doesn't have to be a diehard conservative (which I definitely am not) to be just a little turned off by this? As inspirational as her feats have been, DT had nothing left to prove. She's already been to the Olympics 4 times. I don't spend nearly the amount of time on training that DT does and yet still I am -- or try to be -- very sensitive to any sign from my wife that it is taking away from family time or responsibilities. I am sure all of you have similar balancing acts to perform. I am not willing to call DT a bad mother or girlfriend based on one article, but I suppose it did dampen my enthusiasm for her achievements more than any talk about PEDs.

Me personally....I think the easier conclusion to come to is that she is clean..... there is absolutely no proof to refute that....other than "It's never been done before".......

Interesting you use the BALCO thing as your support when surely you know it took the better part of the decade for that to come out. I guess that is convenient to ignore. Much of BALCO is even still sealed. Yet, you demand someone from her entourage come out within 2 weeks of Trials. And, it remains very obvious you either don't read these posts or forget them. It was posted that she has historically been the cutting edge of supplementation, including now. It's not like we are just examining this cause we are bored. Further, to categorize our position as "It's never been done before" is continued proof of naivete. But, you continue to simplify it while we continue to think critically. Good to have the yen and yang.

It's much more complex than A) she's my hero B) I really like her C) she's volunteered for extra testing D) she does neat stretching. If you ignore the posts by the more bombastic posters (like me) you would easily see there is much to scrutinize and this is offered by many people with both substantial elite level swimming experience and significant connections to the elite swimming community. The continued "she has never tested positive" mantra is ridiculous since all of us have agreed to that for about a year now. Let's get under the covers, not under the sand.

Me personally....I think the easier conclusion to come to is that she is clean..... there is absolutely no proof to refute that....other than "It's never been done before"....... It's always easier to take the simple approach. Rainman - good post. My only comment is that the consequences of doping are rarely enough to discourage it. You are entirely correct in that the collateral damage would be significant. It is of no help that the Tour is turning out to be drug laced again just weeks before the Olympics. But, I think I'm one of the dozen people in the US that watch the Tour anymore.

I find that most extremely successful people, whether they are athletes, musicians, artists, or business leaders are unbalanced in some noticable way. These people sacrificed something, maybe not intentionally, to become the star they are. Some of them have extreme personalities - with nothing to like. That's why I don't admire many of these people, even if I am a fan of their accomplishments. I have a hard time imagining many of them as friends of mine. Warren Buffett is an exception.

We have too many people making statements like this one, "I wasn't some Tammy Wynette Stand-by-Your-Man woman. I didn't just stay home and bake cookies." "You know, I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life." "I'm not sitting here, some little woman standing by her man. I'm sitting here because I love him and I respect him". Hillary Clinton, March, 1992

This would be the same Dr. Laura who blamed Hilda Spitzer for her husband's predilection for high priced call girls? Are you serious! :joker: It would be difficult to act surprised if this were true (which, I assume it is).

I do wonder what Dr. Laura thinks about what Dara is doing. This would be the same Dr. Laura who blamed Hilda Spitzer for her husband's predilection for high priced call girls?

That actually kind of proves my point....Bonds had people around him saying they saw something.....most all of the people that eventually have come up positive in some way or another have had someone around them say they "saw" something out of the ordinary, or they heard them "say" something......I have not heard one person say they saw her doing anything that could be construed as illegal. I do not disagree. It really didn't even cross my mind until I started reading the posts. People have called her a "mutant" and others thought there was a significant change in her appearance. I only noticed that she looked older and that I didn't particularly like her hair cut.