Dara Torres, at 41 years old, just won her 10th career Olympic medal, a silver in the women’s 400m freestyle relay. She anchored her teammates Natalie Coughlin, Lacey Nymeyer, and Kara-Lynn Joyce, but went into her leg facing a time deficit she could not make up for gold.
She is an amazing athlete, and news venues all over have been waxing poetic about her prowess. She is also mother of a two-year-old, however, and I was struck by this video in which she talks about motherhood, credits her daughter with her amazing comeback into Olympic swimming, and tells us she took part in a competition three weeks after childbirth. (Those of you who have been pregnant: What were you doing three weeks after childbirth?)
I also liked her response to an NBC interviewer who asked her if she’d ever taken steroids or other illegal drugs: “There are so many middle-aged people counting on me, I would never do anything to let them down.”
Count me as one of them. Good luck to Torres in her next race, the 50m freestyle. Heats start next Friday, semis on Saturday, and the finals on Sunday.
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