Catching up with Dara Torres

By Nick ZaccardiApr 4, 2014, 4:26 PM EDT

Dara Torres is a 12-time Olympic medalist, swimming in five Games over a seven-Games stretch and retiring after the 2012 Olympic Trials.

Her 12 medals are tied for the most by a U.S. woman with fellow swimmers Natalie Coughlin and Jenny Thompson. Torres is now 46 and still spending plenty of time at the pool, watching her daughter, Tessa, at swim practice.

Tessa was 2 years old when her mom made her final Olympic Team in 2008. She’s now 7.

OlympicTalk recently caught up with Torres to look back on her career and discuss her current activities:

OlympicTalk: What was your favorite Olympic race?

Torres: My last individual event, the 50m free in Beijing. It was my favorite because it was my first time seeded first going into an Olympic final. So it was a different situation being in an Olympic Games final with everybody sort of gunning for me. I thrive on that. I ended up second [behind German Britta Steffen by. 01 of a second], but it still was my favorite race.

I think another reason it was my favorite race was because it was such a refreshing feeling [at the finish]. I hate losing, and when I touched the wall and lost by .01, obviously that’s going to live with me forever. But it’s also refreshing putting it all out there and leaving everything on the line. I did everything I could. On one hand it was bittersweet, losing by one hundredth of a second and on the other I did everything I could.

OlympicTalk: Who was your favorite competitor?

Torres: Jill Sterkel, [a 1976-88 Olympian]. She is very classy. She was tough, and she also left everything in the pool. She was older than me. My first race against her, I was 14 and she was 21.

There was one instance I was in a heat before her, in a preliminary round, and there was a false start, which back then you were allowed to have without being disqualified. I remember getting out of the pool, I was cold, and she was waiting to go after me, and she gave me her towel. She saw that I was shivering and cold. That was really classy. She was a fierce competitor, but she was nice out of the pool.

OlympicTalk: Would you have changed anything about your career, retiring after 1992 and 2000?

Torres: I don’t have any regrets of what I’ve done. Having taken that time off, it rejuvenated my love for the sport. I found passion for the sport. So that when I finished my last Olympic Trials in 2012, I had no regrets.

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OlympicTalk: Any thoughts about swimming again?

Torres: That’s a hard question for me because every time I have retired, I have come back. After my sixth Olympic Trials, it has hit me that I’m really done this time.

OlympicTalk: Which active swimmers do you like to watch?

Torres: I like swimmers who have versatility. Missy Franklin obviously swims a lot of different strokes. I swam sprint freestyle and a little butterfly. It’s always fun to watch someone who can do so many different events. I like watching Missy Franklin, Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte.

source: Getty Images — Dara Torres holds her daughter, Tessa, then 6, at the 2012 Olympic Trials. (Getty Images)

OlympicTalk: How is your daughter, Tessa, taking to the pool?

Torres: She’s a little water bug. She loves water.

I’m going to take her in about an hour to swim practice. She does other stuff, too. If she wants to continue swimming, that’s great. I don’t know if that’s what she wants to do, but she seems to love it right now. She also does dance and lacrosse.

OlympicTalk: What have you been up to?

Torres: I have been very busy with sponsors and doing motivational talks. I’m going to a conference tomorrow for a couple days.

It’s also fun being home and being a mom. In addition to my daughter, I have two stepkids now. I’m busy shuttling them to different activities. It’s a very Sally Homemaker kind of life with other stuff on the side. I really enjoy it.

San Diego submits proposal to USOC for 2024 Olympic bid

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Football takes significant step in Olympic push

By OlympicTalkMar 29, 2023, 2:18 PM EDT

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Football took another step toward possible Olympic inclusion with the IOC executive board proposing that the sport’s international federation — the IFAF — be granted full IOC recognition at a meeting in October.

IOC recognition does not equate to eventual Olympic inclusion, but it is a necessary early marker if a sport is to join the Olympics down the line. The IOC gave the IFAF provisional recognition in 2013.

Specific measures are required for IOC recognition, including having an anti-doping policy compliant with the World Anti-Doping Agency and having 50 affiliated national federations from at least three continents. The IFAF has 74 national federations over five continents with almost 4.8 million registered athletes, according to the IOC.

The NFL has helped lead the push for flag football to be added for the 2028 Los Angeles Games. Flag football had medal events for men and women at last year’s World Games, a multi-sport competition including Olympic and non-Olympic sports, in Birmingham, Alabama.

Football is one of nine sports that have been reported to be in the running to be proposed by LA 2028 to the IOC to be added for the 2028 Games only. LA 2028 has not announced which, if any sports, it plans to propose.

Under rules instituted before the Tokyo Games, Olympic hosts have successfully proposed to the IOC adding sports solely for their edition of the Games.

For Tokyo, baseball-softball, karate, skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing were added. For Paris, skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing were approved again, and breaking will make its Olympic debut. Those sports were added four years out from the Games.

For 2028, the other sports reportedly in the running for proposal are baseball and softball, breaking, cricket, karate, kickboxing, lacrosse, motorsports and squash.

All of the other eight sports reportedly in the running for 2028 proposal already have a federation with full IOC recognition (if one counts the international motorcycle racing federation for motorsports).

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Helen Maroulis stars in wrestling documentary, with help from Chris Pratt

By Nick ZaccardiMar 29, 2023, 10:05 AM EDT

Getty

One of the remarkable recent Olympic comeback stories is the subject of a film that will be shown nationwide in theaters for one day only on Thursday.

“Helen | Believe” is a documentary about Helen Maroulis, the first U.S. Olympic women’s wrestling champion. It is produced by Religion of Sports, the venture founded by Gotham Chopra, Michael Strahan and Tom Brady. Showing details are here.

After taking gold at the 2016 Rio Games, Maroulis briefly retired in 2019 during a two-year stretch in which she dealt with concussions and post-traumatic stress disorder. The film focuses on that period and her successful bid to return and qualify for the Tokyo Games, where she took bronze.

In a poignant moment in the film, Maroulis described her “rock bottom” — being hospitalized for suicidal ideations.

In an interview, Maroulis said she was first approached about the project in 2018, the same year she had her first life-changing concussion that January. A wrestling partner’s mother was connected to director Dylan Mulick.

Maroulis agreed to the film in part to help spread mental health awareness in sports. Later, she cried while watching the 2020 HBO film, “The Weight of Gold,” on the mental health challenges that other Olympians faced, because it resonated with her so much.

“When you’re going through something, it sometimes gives you an anchor of hope to know that someone’s been through it before, and they’ve overcome it,” she said.

Maroulis’ comeback story hit a crossroads at the Olympic trials in April 2021, where the winner of a best-of-three finals series in each weight class made Team USA.

Maroulis won the opening match against Jenna Burkert, but then lost the second match. Statistically, a wrestler who loses the second match in a best-of-three series usually loses the third. But Maroulis pinned Burkert just 22 seconds into the rubber match to clinch the Olympic spot.

Shen then revealed that she tore an MCL two weeks earlier.

“They told me I would have to be in a brace for six weeks,” she said then. “I said, ‘I don’t have that. I have two and a half.’”

Maroulis said she later asked the director what would have happened if she didn’t make the team for Tokyo. She was told the film still have been done.

“He had mentioned this isn’t about a sports story or sports comeback story,” Maroulis said. “This is about a human story. And we’re using wrestling as the vehicle to tell this story of overcoming and healing and rediscovering oneself.”

Maroulis said she was told that, during filming, the project was pitched to the production company of actor Chris Pratt, who wrestled in high school in Washington. Pratt signed on as a producer.

“Wrestling has made an impact on his life, and so he wants to support these kinds of stories,” said Maroulis, who appeared at last month’s Santa Barbara Film Festival with Pratt.

Pratt said he knew about Maroulis before learning about the film, which he said “needed a little help to get it over the finish line,” according to a public relations company promoting the film.

The film also highlights the rest of the six-woman U.S. Olympic wrestling team in Tokyo. Four of the six won a medal, including Tamyra Mensah-Stock‘s gold.

“I was excited to be part of, not just (Maroulis’) incredible story, but also helping to further advance wrestling and, in particular, female wrestling,” Pratt said, according to responses provided by the PR company from submitted questions. “To me, the most compelling part of Helen’s story is the example of what life looks like after a person wins a gold medal. The inevitable comedown, the trauma around her injuries, the PTSD, the drive to continue that is what makes her who she is.”

Maroulis, who now trains in Arizona, hopes to qualify for this year’s world championships and next year’s Olympics.

“I try to treat every Games as my last,” she said. “Now I’m leaning toward being done [after 2024], but never say never.”

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