Olympic Champ Tries Again - At 41
SUN VALLEY, Ida., May 29, 2008(CBS) At 41, Dara Torres should be settling into life as a mom, teaching two-year-old Tessa to swim and savoring her twenty years of gold medal memories from a record four Olympic games.
But Torres is not the “retiring” type. Twenty-four years after her first Olympic games, she’s back in the swim again.
“You have nine Olympic medals. You have the records. I mean, you’ve done it all!” CBS News correspondent Kelly Cobiella said.
“I’m just selfish,” Torres said. “No, I’m just kidding. You know, I get … asked that a lot. Like, why? Why are you doing this? And the best answer I can give is, ‘because I can.’”
Torres is now prepping for an unprecedented fifth Olympic trials - a dream born in that community pool in Florida, where she swam to stay fit while carrying Tessa.
“These middle-aged men would start racing me, and I would look down at my belly and I’m like, ‘do they not see that I have like six months of belly here?’ or, ‘what are they doing?’” she said.
It all stoked her competitive juices and at the U.S. Nationals last August, wearing goggles older than some of her teenaged competitors, Torres stunned everyone, including Torres.
“Torres! A new American record!” an announcer said.
That American record? It was one Torres herself set - eight years ago.
“And the first thing I thought was, ‘wow, can I go faster? How do I get faster?’” she sid.
You might thing that because Torres is twice the age of her competitors, she has to do twice the work in the pool. Not true. She actually does half.
Most of her training is on dry land … 90 minutes of grueling “core” exercises, twisting, pulling and hurling her body into shape.
It’s an unconventional approach for an unconventional athlete.
Cobiella said to Julie Strupp, Torres’ 23-year-old teammate, “she was in the Olympics before you were born.”
“Looking at what she does in the weight room, outside the pool, in the pool, and she has a daughter - it’s unbelievable what she does,” Strupp said.
A little “too” unbelievable for some, who question whether a 41 year old can do all this without chemical help. Which is why Torres went to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency herself. To prove she can.
“I don’t care,” she said. “You can DNA test me, blood test me, urine test me. I’m an open book. Just test me so I can show people I’m doing this the right way.”
The right way isn’t the easy way … even for her.
“This is a big challenge for me,” she said. “And I’m hoping that I can pave the way for other athletes or even everyday people who think they’re too old to do something that they really wanna do.”
Like perhaps win a little more jewelry, gold jewelry, for daughter Tessa.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/29/eveningnews/printable4137017.shtml
VIDEO
http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=4137065n
