An Overwhelming Drive
Olympic Medalist Dara Torres on winning--again and again.
I feel like I'm one with the water, like I was meant to be in the water. Strap some gills on me and I'll just live in the water. It's peaceful, serene. I feel comfortable in the water. No one bothers you when you're in the water. You can think when you're in the water.
The earliest thing I remember is the pool we had in our backyard. It had a step that went all the way around the side of the pool, so when I was little, I would stand and walk along the step with my four brothers and sister.
I was always athletically inclined. In PE, I was the first one picked on teams before boys were. Swimming always came naturally to me, and I had a lot of speed. My speed is different from other people's speed. If you watch me swim in a race, you'll see my competitors take two strokes to my one.
I don't know exactly why I've done well, but I know I've surrounded myself with the best. I'm probably genetically gifted. I want it, and I probably want it more than other people want it. I want it bad, and I want to win. I'm ultra-competitive.
This year at the Olympics, I loved the relays because they are a team event. It was great to be swimming with girls you swim against all year long in the United States, and then you come together as a team. The oldest was 25. I was 16 years older, so they were basically about a year old when I swam in my first Olympic Games.
I got three silvers in the Beijing Olympics, but I had mixed feelings when I lost gold in the 50 meters by a hundredth of a second. It would have been easier to lose by more. A hundredth of a second—you can't even blink that fast, that's how close it is. If I hadn't filed my nails, maybe I would have at least tied or won. My mom is usually the one who knows me best, who probably knows what was going on in my head when I touched the wall. She sort of goes through the same emotions that I do; she was bummed but also proud.
I've been in five Olympic Games in 24 years. People have told me how I inspired them. That's a much more rewarding feeling than bringing home medals.
People think they are too old to do something. Others put off doing something or don't think they could balance being a parent and doing their work, so I guess they like my story. I feel like I'm going out there and doing my thing and loving what I'm doing. I didn't do it to try to show that a 41-year-old could do this. It just ended up that way.
© 2008
Loading Menu
Member Comments
Posted By: ObamaYesWeCan @ 11/01/2008 5:05:24 PM
Comment: This moronic scumbag Samuel J. Wurzelbacher "Joe the Plumber" had his AZ driver license suspended
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/128323
Wurzelbacher, who lived in Mesa in 2000 and had an Arizona driver's license, had his driver's license suspended by the Arizona Department of Transportation Motor Vehicle Division on May 4, 2000, following a nonpayment of a court-imposed fine for civil traffic violations, according to court records.
...owes nearly $1,200 in back taxes, according to public records, still owes more than $700 to the Mesa court system.
Records show he was cited for failure to stop at a red light and for failure to provide proof of insurance on Feb. 9, 2000, in a black Dodge truck at the intersection of Dobson and Baseline roads in Mesa.
After failing to pay his original fine of $627.50 issued in March 2000, his license was suspended and the fine was handed over to a collection agency along with a 16 percent surcharge. The now-resident of Holland, Ohio, still owes $727.90 to the Mesa Municipal Court, according to court records.
Hopefully the collection agency will break both of his legs so he'll never be able to walk nor work ever again. This typical Republican scumbag deserves it.
Posted By: Jim Johnson @ 10/16/2008 1:04:24 PM
Comment: Obama's view of the future of America - Socialism which is the next step to Communism!!
Under socialism a ruling class of intellectuals, bureaucrats and social planners decide what people want or what is good for society and then use the coercive power of the State to regulate, tax, and redistribute the wealth of those who work for a living. In other words, socialism is a form of legalized theft.
The morality of socialism can be summed-up in two words: envy and self-sacrifice. Envy is the desire to not only possess another's wealth but also the desire to see another's wealth lowered to the level of one's own. Socialism's teaching on self-sacrifice was nicely summarized by two of its greatest defenders, Hermann Goering and Bennito Mussolini. The highest principle of Nazism (National Socialism), said Goering, is: "Common good comes before private good." Fascism, said
Mussolini, is "a life in which the individual, through the sacrifice of his own private interests??realizes that completely spiritual existence in which his value as a man lies."
Socialism is the social system which institutionalizes envy and self-sacrifice: It is the social system which uses compulsion and the organized violence of the State to expropriate wealth from the producer class for its redistribution to the parasitical class.
Despite the intellectuals' psychotic hatred of capitalism, it is the only moral and just social system.
Capitalism is the only moral system because it requires human beings to deal with one another as traders--that is, as free moral agents trading and selling goods and services on the basis of mutual consent.
Capitalism is the only just system because the sole criterion that determines the value of thing exchanged is the free, voluntary, universal judgement of the consumer. Coercion and fraud are anathema to the free-market system.
It is both moral and just because the degree to which man rises or falls in society is determined by the degree to which he uses his mind. Capitalism is the only social system that rewards merit, ability and achievement, regardless of one's birth or station in life.
Yes, there are winners and losers in capitalism. The winners are those who are honest, industrious, thoughtful, prudent, frugal, responsible, disciplined, and efficient. The losers are those who are shiftless, lazy, imprudent, extravagant, negligent, impractical, and inefficient. [What about the role of luckbeing in the right place at the right time or the wrong place at the wrong time? R. R. Pope}
Capitalism is the only social system that rewards virtue and punishes vice. This applies to both the business executive and the carpenter, the lawyer and the factory worker.
Posted By: spidergirl24 @ 10/14/2008 3:57:37 PM
Comment: Reading Dara Torres describe why she is such a gifted swimmer was similar to listening to Michael Jordan explain why he was so talented on the court or why Rinaldo's play on the soccer field looked like poetry in motion. Their athletic success can be found in their natural ability, genetics and hard work. Equally as important, Dara Torres doesn't only need to be singularly identified by swimming but has other talents, as well.