Dara Torres-Amazing

On the news yesterday they mentioned how a 16 year old girl (who looked more like 12) placed fifth in one of the track events at Olympic Trials and apparently this was a big deal. Isn't it strange that high schoolers rarely reach the highest levels in track but they do in swimming? On the other hand, there have been lots of track stars that continue to excel into their 30s. Haven't seen many in their 40s, though. edit: correction. She finished fifth in her heat to advance to today's finals. Here's a story about her: sports.espn.go.com/.../story This doesn't surprise me that much. It seems that although high school track has more participants than high school swimming there are far fewer year round track athletes. The club program(s) seem so few and far between. It could mean that we are missing an opportunity to develop track athletes. As for Torres embarrassing USA swimming.....I just don't see it. Yes it says something that we have no NCAA sprinters as fast as Torres. It could say that Torres is cheating. Or it could say that her 180 degree opposite training style and complete professional dedication to her events is the roadmap to follow. And we have some emerging young superstars like Beisel (and Hoff before her). They just aren't sprinters.

15, 000 yards a week. Probably a little less.

I bet NCAA sprinters train much more than 15,000 yards/wk. I don't think any have team stretchers. I can't keep track. I thought in the last Dara interview I read or saw (maybe the NYT article), she said she does 5000 meters a day 5x a week. I have no idea how much college sprinters train, really. Tall Paul? Ande? Unfortunately, there aren't many NCAA kids in the finals. As someone noted on the other thread, almost none of the NCAA Champs are on the Olympic team (except maybe Stoval?). They're being outdone by the pros. Do you really think the swimmers in the finals or semi-finals of the 50 free are high yardage swimmers?

Again, I just don't see it as a positive having a middle aged woman represent US women's swimming in the Games. I find it somewhat embarassing to our sport. John Smith John, Deleted...

Hmmm ... that was my reaction too. How many kids can spend a $100,000+ to train? Is Dara's training really 180 degrees different? Aren't sprinters at that level in sprint programs? Don't they have weight and resistance programs and trainers? Maybe the resistance stretching program is different, but other swimmers must be getting massages and ART. I bet NCAA sprinters train much more than 15,000 yards/wk. I don't think any have team stretchers.

What kind of money does she have to put out for this entourage of hers. It must be nice. Most clubs don't have the kind of staff that she alone has. Her father is very wealthy. Maybe this affords her the support staff and resources required to do nothing but train, and recover. But putting that aside, she's the only one doing what she does at the moment. And until we all see a few more doing the same, there will always be some skepticism.

Things that make you go hmmmm?? I think it would turn out to be a pretty interesting dilemma if it turned out that there were some perfectly legal but very expensive performance enhancing procedure that gave a significant advantage. Certainly it is becoming more common for elite athletes to have their own support team, there were a few cases profiled at the last Olympics.

One thing you can't argue about with Dara is that her stroke technique is great. In the 100 free everyone else looked like a mass of flailing limbs in comparison. Dara's stroke is silky smooth. It almost looked like she was swimming a 400 free rather than a 100.

Her results should be very encouraging to fellow sprinters GHJ, 33, and Neil Walker, 32.

15, 000 yards a week. Probably a little less. Kara Lynn Joyce's bio states she swims "14,000 meters or yards per day, 5 hours a day, 6 days a week." She does the 50 and 100 free. Would be interesting to look up the bios of the rest of the top 8 in the 50 free.