Dara Grace Torres (born April 15, 1967, in Los
Angeles, California) is an American swimmer. She was
the first swimmer from her country to compete in
four Olympics: 1984, 1988, 1992, and 2000.
She has won nine Olympic medals, including four
golds, and won five medals alone in at Sydney in
2000, the Games in which she was the eldest member
on the team with her 33 years. On August 1st, 2007
at the age of 40 (just 15 months after giving birth
to her first child), she won gold in the 100 meter
freestyle at the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, her
14th win at these events. She then followed that up
on August 4th, by breaking her own American record
in the 50m freestyle.
She is currently training for the 2008 Summer
Olympics and would become the first swimmer to make
five Olympic teams and the oldest female Olympic
swimmer, at age 41, were she to make the team.
Torres attended the Westlake School for Girls (now
Harvard-Westlake School), located in North
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, and swam under
coach Darlene Bible, where she set CIF records that
remain to this day.
Torres is featured in the book Gold in the Water by
P.H. Mullen, which describes her comeback for the
2000 Olympics under coaches Richard Quick and Dick
Jochums. She broke the World Record in the women's
50m freestyle three times during the early 1980s.
She subsequently attended the University of Florida,
where she received 28 All-American honors.
Torres has worked on television as a reporter and
announcer for American networks such as NBC, ESPN,
TNT, OLN and Fox News Channel. She now hosts the
golf show the Clubhouse on the Resort Sports
Network. She is also a sometime model, having
appeared in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in
1994.
