Is Dara Dirty?
That's been the focus of this past weeks heated debate.
It's time for a poll.
Her Nationals victory and "remarkable" comeback from her long retirement has raised more than a few eye brows. Some believe she is, some beleive she isn't.
Some of us are on the fence, conflicted, we're thrilled to see a 40 year old swim that fast, we realize she has more talent than most 40 year olds but to become that great, that fast might be suspect.
What's your opinion?
AJ
Didn't Spitz swim a faster fly at 40 than he did in his 20's?
No, he didn't. His world record time from Munich was a 54.27 in the 100 fly. His best time during his comeback attempt in 1992 was 58.03. He didn't even make the Trials cut.
Didn't Spitz swim a faster fly at 40 than he did in his 20's?
No. In fact not even close. This statement is taken from another thread called Dara Torres is Amazing thread in post 110 in answering the question.
The Spitz comparison is a very weak one. Spitz did not stay active the way Dara did when he made his comeback. He took 17 years off from swimming and from physical sports activity. Spitz is probably the most talented swimmer ever. His workouts were legendary because no one did workouts like he did and was able to be that good. When Spitz tried to make a comeback he managed to go :58.03 in the 100 meter Fly and the Olympic Trial qualifying time was :55.59 and he wasn't even close. Dara Torres goes to Stanford last year and goes :25.98 leading off a Relay that I know you were a witness to and easily makes the Olympic standard without any publicity. That fact that it took Spitz 2 full years to do a time that came up almost 2.5 seconds from qualifying and it took Dara qualifing easily after having a baby 3 months before the swim says something. Plus I don't believe Spitz went to any of the big competitions that Dara has gone to and the only races I remember seeing him in in his comeback were the TV prize races against Biondi and Jager where he was soundly beaten.
There was a lot of incentive for him to do this because Bud Greenspan was going to make a film of his comeback if he were successful. The fact that his :54.27 time in 1972 would have placed him 3rd in the 1989 USA LCM rankings made people believe he could do it. My understanding is that Dara is doing this on her own and there are no financial incentives attached yet. It will be interesting to see how far she goes and what happens.
You are correct about Rowdy. He was 29 when he missed making the 1988 Olympic team by .07 in the 100 Meter Free. You still have not answered my question. Do you believe that Dara Torres is using performancing enhancing drugs and is that the reason for her success? I agree there are more drugs and illegal supplements out there but does that mean that Dara Torress is using performance enhancing drugs?
Ande, very interesting to see how Popov was consistently in the 22's until the sharp drop in 2000.....and how he never really seriously came close to that again.
Ande, very interesting to see how Popov was consistently in the 22's until the sharp drop in 2000.....and how he never really seriously came close to that again.
Question on reading these charts:
What do the light blue dotted lines mean???? :oldman:
it just makes one wonder
how did inge and dara suddenly improve so much
in such a short amount of time
The article "Windmill Revolution" that Bill wrote and posted a link to correlated Inge's time drops with the change to a straight-arm-recovery style.
I think it was the shoulder tear that kind of sealed the deal for me. Obviously shoulder injuries are not uncommon in the swimming world, but when your ligaments start disconnecting from your bones at the same time that you're setting American records, and you also just happen to be 1 year post partum and nearly 40 years old, yeah, that makes me pretty suspicious.
:roids:
Oh, I had sort of assumed Inge was doping ...
If Dara can do it, why not Gary Hall? He's years younger, still very fast obviously, but not setting ARs.
Didn't Spitz swim a faster fly at 40 than he did in his 20's?
No ARs though.
Forget the AR portion of the equation. Just look at the drop in seconds. This of course, would require me to know how much faster Spitz swam...and I don't. :help: Anyhow, I think times dropped at a faster rate in the fly events than in the freestyle events during the time periods in question.
Maybe she just started training a little too hard? Boy, this hardly seems conclusive to me.
I would agree if it were the only "evidence" of steroid use. Certainly there are a good number of swimmers who tear shoulder ligaments and require surgery. But, as I noted in my original post, it's like one of about 5 or 6 things that, all together, are just a little too much for me to believe.
