Dara Torres - Still Swimming at 41

Dara Torres is a 40-year old Olympic gold medalist training for the 2008 summer games. Such an inspiring story. At the age of 25 she thought her competitive career was over and then she went on to win medals at the age of 33 in Sydney.

She's twice divorced, a mom and loves chocolate. Minus the fact that she's an Olympic swimmer and has an amazing rock solid body - she's just your average 40-something year old with dreams and goals.

Life doesn't end at 25 - and it certainly doesn't end at 40.

Editorial Update (7/4/08)

Dara beat the odds and earned a fifth Olympic berth with a victory over the American-record holder Natalie Coughlin and coming within 0.02 of her best time ever. It is simply amazing to realize that Torres competed at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984, a time that many of her competitors weren't even born. The link below points to a pre-Olympic trials interview with Women's Health magazine where she drives home 3 points: " (1) your body can be rock-hard at 40; (2) a baby doesn't have to slow you down; and (3) when it comes to any goal, it's all about how bad you want it."

To put Torres incredible and improbable accomplishment in perspective, Torres’s time was "0.06 faster than her gold-medal effort in Sydney in 2000. It was 4.58 seconds better than her fourth-place time at the 1984 Olympic trials in Indianapolis, which earned her a berth in the 400 freestyle relay in the Los Angeles Games."

This just doesn't happen in the world of elite sports and is a stunning rebuttal to what constitutes being past one's competitive prime.

Torres has been through two divorces, has battled bulimia and five knee injuries, not the kind of things that her much-younger competitors have had to contend with (not to mention raising a 2 year old daughter). Among the many lessons we can learn from Dara, life doesn't end at 40 (let alone 25 when she first retired from competitive swimming because she felt "too old").

Women's Health interview

Editorial Update (8/15/08)

Torres swam to two Olympic silver medals last night:

In the 50 free, her specialty event, she set an American record Sunday with a time of 24.07, finishing only one one-hundredth of a second behind Australia’s Brittan Steffan.

How remarkable is that? Torres (41) is older than Steffan (24) and bronze medalist Cate Campbell (16) combined.

“A couple of hours before I swam, I called my daughter and she said, ‘Hello, mommy,’” Torres said. “You know, that said it all.”

After stepping off the medal stand, Torres swam the anchor leg of the women’s 4x100 medley team, which finished second to Australia. (Joyce, who finished sixth in the 50 free, also received her second silver medal of this week for swimming a prelim for the team.)

What's next for Dara? Who knows, at the next Olympics in London she'll only be 45!

If you are new to LifeTwo, this site is dedicated to midlife health, well-being, careers and other issues to 40+. Please visit the LifeTwo home page or any of the categories across the top of this page. If 41 isn't too old to be the fastest woman swimmer in the United States (and within .01 seconds of being the fastest woman swimmer in the world) then it is highly likely that you are not too old to accomplish your dreams.