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Swimming has a peculiar relationship with time. Races measured in hundredths of seconds. Careers measured in years, but only a handful of them. Peak performance arrives at 18, maybe 21, then the slow fade begins. This is how it worked. This is how it always worked.
Until one woman turned 41 in Beijing and broke American records.
The contradiction should have made headlines: Training five days while teenagers trained nine. Building swimming’s first multidisciplinary support team. Proving that efficiency beats volume, that recovery trumps grinding, that the body can improve with age if you ask different questions.
Yet almost nobody in swimming asked her how. The sport that should have been dissecting her methods collectively shrugged. Perhaps her success was too threatening to the infrastructure built on youth and disposability.
What if everything we believed about athletic peaks was wrong?
My guest today is Dara Torres, who didn’t just break that rule—she obliterated it with such force that we’re still recalibrating what’s possible. A five-time Olympian and 12-time Olympic medalist, Dara became the oldest swimmer to ever win an Olympic medal at 41, just two years after giving birth, breaking American records when she should have been, by all conventional wisdom, a decade past relevance.
“If Jack Nicklaus can win a Masters at 46 and Nolan Ryan can throw a no-hitter at 44, why can’t a 41-year-old mom make an Olympic team?”
- DARA TORRES
Today, we discuss:
- Breaking Olympic Records at 41
- Revolutionary Recovery Method
- Competing While Pregnant
- Eating Disorders in Elite Sport
- Coaching Without Scholarships
For those who prefer a visual experience, the conversation is available on YouTube. As always, the audio version streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
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Thank The Team: I do not do this alone. Send your love to Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production, show notes and interstitial music; with additional audio engineering by Cale Curtis and additional music by Moby; Blake Curtis & Dan Drake for video, & editing; graphics by Jessica Miranda & Daniel Solis; portraits by Davy Greenberg, Grayson Wilder & Gizelle Peters; copywriting by Ben Pryor; and theme music by Tyler Piatt, Trapper Piatt & Hari Mathis.
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