dara torres:
1/100 of a second from the gold (she got off the blocks slow, too)... but dara's all class. so did the second american swimmer in the women's relay that followed. when your swimmer comes home 1/4 length ahead of the competition, no way the competition should hit the water 1/4 of a body ahead of the next swimmer.
dara's been swimming competitively for around 30 years and truly saved her best for last - she was faster tonight than at any time in her life, in spite of being pretty slow off the blocks.
looking back on her career, she had the potential to be the best female swimmer ever (fellow zoner jenny thompson holds that crown for now). she suffered from bulimia as as a youth and still did pretty well as a 3 time olympian. once she got her diet together at 33, her age became a factor, even though she swam better than ever.
if her diet had been right at the same time as her peak chronological age... i think it would have been phelps like.
we'll never know because her diet wasn't right at her peak chronological age, but she overcame much adversity, stuck to it and had fun as she redefined swimming in her own way.
the zone was introduced to the olympics via the stanford swimmers on the 1992 olympic team (8 gold medals for those stanford swimmers, by the way). since its introduction, the oldest member of the us olympic team has been a zoner.
that's 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004 and now 2008.
random chance? placebo effect?
not the smart way to bet, imho. |
