Motivational Speaker Speakers Bureau Login About ... DARA TORRES / DARA TORRES BIO Dara Torres Bio Dara Torres is arguably the fastest female swimmer in America. Since her first international swimming competition at age 14, Dara has proved that she is far from your average athlete. She is the first American swimmer to compete in five Olympic Games and has won a total of 12 Olympic medals in her career. In 2008 Dara captured the hearts and minds of people of all ages when she launched her comeback as a new mother at the age of 41 – eight years since her last Olympics when she retired from competitive swimming.
Torres grew up in Los Angeles, California the fifth of six children and the older of two girls. At age seven, Torres started following her brothers to swim practice at the local Y.M.C.A. and later joined the Culver City swim team. Dara attended the Westlake School for Girls (now Harvard-Westlake School), and swam under coach Darlene Bible, where she set California Interscholastic Federation records that remain to this day. As a teenager in the 1980s, she swam for the Mission Viejo Nadadores, in Mission Viejo, California, under mark Shubert, the 2008 Olympic swimming coach.
During her junior year in high school, Torres moved to Mission Viejo, California to train for the 1984 Olympics. She started attending the University of Florida in 1985. At Florida, Dara earned 28 N.C.A.A. all-American swimming awards, the maximum number possible during a college career. | |
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