Dara Torres-Amazing

Elise- Balance is exactly right. Balance is something you find for yourself and your family. Don't proclaim that the balance you have found is what others need to comply with or by judged by. Lighten up. Tree

How many of the USA team members do you suspect of doping??? Is it 10 or 15??? I have seen a lot of outstanding swims. Does it require drug use to do these outstanding swims? Who do you suspect??? How many, they surely swam fast. It must be un/natural. How many have bad parenting skills??? How many are parents legally or otherwise??? How many were raised by parents who had bad parenting skills??? Please aswer the Questions.

There is some folly, to be sure. There is a substantial difference between staying in shape and competing consistently on the international elite level. I'm not sure what TaeBo has to do with any of this. I'm not even really sure that TaeBo is, some kung-fu huckster video series I suspect, that made someone rich. You should really try it....it's a better workout then you might think.......

The article hardly demystified Dara. It raises doubt, a natural thing to do, but it provides no answers. I agree the title is misleading. It is a fairly short article so I would not expect too much, but what I liked is that there was at least an ATTEMPT at some research; so many articles out there are just simple opinion pieces. Did anyone click on the meridian stretching links? Last spring I bought a DVD demonstrating some of the exercises and was not that impressed but I am not sure I have given it a fair shot. I admit to being turned off by two aspects: one is the weirdness of Bob Cooley and his claims for some of the stretches (improving personality and the like). The other is the fact that it seems to get the most benefit, you need to do it with a partner, which can be impractical (to be sure, there are a number of stretches that can be done solo). My wife laughed so hard at some of Cooley's claims that I doubt I could ever get her to partner up with me on the stretches (at least, not without much snide commentary!). But I have heard some good things about the method (the physical aspects anyway) from some people I know and respect. Anyone else have any experience with it? (Those of you who are anti-stretching can save your breath. :) )

Isn't the purpose of this forum to express opinions and share what we've learned with others? I don't think much has been learned by many, most of the posts here are rumour and innuendo.

Beltran.....yeah he's naively confident, stupid, or maybe desperate. The EPO tests continue to advance so these riders are idiots. The positive tests usually result in a 2 year ban. What I don't understand is, surely the performance gain from EPO in a lengthy cycling race must be very large, perhaps over 10%? Assuming that many of the cyclists have similar clean performance, if the majority are clean I don't understand why those who fail drug tests aren't disappearing off into the distance ahead of all the clean athletes?

Isn't the purpose of this forum to express opinions and share what we've learned with others? You are now learning if you say anything from a conservative slant, you are tarred and feathered as someone who is not educated or stuck in the dark ages. Typical liberal ways of disagreeing. Welcome to the USMS forums.

You are now learning if you say anything from a conservative slant, you are tarred and feathered as someone who is not educated or stuck in the dark ages. Typical liberal ways of disagreeing. Welcome to the USMS forums. Now that's funny right there............true.....but funny

I really don't think this is a good assumption. Lots of smokers continue to smoke through pregnancy. Drinkers probably continue to drink. If you're a drug cheat it's likely you've convinced yourself that the drugs aren't dangerous, so why worry about your baby? And for the record, I'm not saying I think Dara is cheating, just that this isn't any kind of evidence that she's clean. The point I am trying to make is that there are other viable explanations to explain an incredible performance aside from performance enhancing drug abuse. Maybe this is a glass half empty/half full argument. I am not aware of any evidence that Dara is cheating or has ever cheated, so to my thinking the times that she is swimming today are explainable by the fact that she is an extraordinary athlete who understands the training required to swim at this level. The easy conclusion to jump to is that doping is involved, but is it that far fetched that she has a fantastic freestyle stroke, has an ideal sprinter's frame, and prepared meticulously for this result? Assumptions must be made to explore this debate and it is just as easy to assume that she did all the right things rather than that she risked the health of her unborn child.

"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 Thanks for getting the right quote. Guess I should have just left out the quote marks and called it a paraphrase. Funny thing was, I heard that quote when I was single and working as an associate in a big law firm. It still irked me. I didn't hold it against Bill as I voted for him in 1992. I think it is very honorable for a woman who has a professional degree to make the decision to stay home, bake cookies, and have teas. Just because somebody decides to do so does not mean they think that all women should do so. Where did you get the exact quote? I like to keep up with quotes from political figures.