Age is Just a Number

hi my name is dara taurus and i’m a

former olympic swimmer

although olympians don’t like to be

called former so let’s just say retired

i’m gonna tell you a little bit about my

story and hopefully you’ll be inspired

by it

so i started swimming at a very very

early age i had four older brothers and

whatever they would do

i do so when they started swimming i

started swimming

um i just really fell in love with the

sport and what happened was when i was

about just finished my

about 17 finished my junior year in high

school

i made my first olympic team in 1984.

um it was a great experience um

kind of different when you see it

through the eyes of a 17 year old and

then you fast forward to my last

olympics at 41

and see it through the eyes of a 41 year

old but it was an unbelievable

experience when a gold medal was super

happy in front of my hometown crowd in

los angeles

then four years later i swam uh in the

88 olympics in seoul korea

won a silver and bronze there and then i

thought i was kind of done

graduated college uh got back into

swimming because i missed it a lot and

went for what i thought was my last

olympic games in 1992

in barcelona i won a gold there and all

those four medals

were all on relays and so i never really

got that individual gold which

really bothered me but i was like you

know what

they called me the grandma on the team

in 92 and i

felt like i was old at 25. you didn’t

really see a lot of

athletes outside of college uh going to

olympic games so i thought i needed to

like hang up my suits to drive retire

and get a job so i did that i was living

in new york for about

seven years and i was doing some

modeling doing some tv and just really

enjoying life

and then about a year before the 2000

olympics in sydney australia

i got the itch again and decided that i

wanted to train for

my fourth olympic games now i won’t even

tell you what they called me at 33 years

old

training for olympic games but um it was

something that i just really wanted to

do i

i felt like no one’s done it before

taking that much time off and coming

back

um not a lot of people could say they

have been in four olympic games and i

just thought it would be a great goal to

try to do that

so i went to the olympic games i

actually swam five events there

um three individual events i won three

bronze in the individual events

and two goals in the relay and i’ll

never forget my last relay

i was up on the awards podium we got

that gold medal and i’m standing there

and uh the national anthem starts to

play and the american flag starts to

rise up

and i started crying i’m like oh my gosh

don’t cry you know you’re not supposed

to cry

you know you kind of don’t want to show

your emotions on the award stand you

just want to be happy and i was

crying and i didn’t know it was happy

tears or sad tears but

when i started to figure out why i was

crying i thought oh my gosh

i don’t have a job when i get home what

am i going to do and literally that’s

what i was thinking is i don’t have a

job to go home to

i just swam in my fourth olympic games

and i have no work so

um i was really kind of bummed we get

off the awards podium we sort of do our

victory lap

going to drug testing and um

i come out of drug testing and there’s a

reporter there and i was one of the last

ones out of the

the sydney arena and there was a

reporter there and

as i was walking by i kind of said hi

they said excuse me miss taurus

uh we have been waiting and waiting to

talk to you can we interview you i’m

like yeah i don’t have anything else

going on right now

and so um he turned the camera on stuck

the microphone in my face

and started asking me a bunch of

questions interviewing me

and then the last question he asked was

okay you just took seven years off

you made this comeback came back at 33

years old you won five olympic medals

are you gonna do this again in another

eight years in 2008.

and i looked at him and i thought oh my

gosh that’s the stupidest question i’ve

ever heard and i walked away

um needless to say i’m still trying to

find him to apologize

i never in my wildest dreams thought

that i would

be swimming again in my 40s 40s just

seemed very old

so um fast forward about five years six

years

i have my daughter and i was just

swimming for exercise

just really enjoying it and um

i don’t know one thing kind of led to

another and i got the itch again to

start

training for another olympic games and i

wasn’t really sure how i was going to do

it

because i had this newborn at home this

infant and how is it going to be a great

mother

and take care of my child and also train

for olympic games

and so i really look to working parents

out there as my inspiration

to know that you can go and do what you

love to do and for me my work was

swimming which i loved

and also be a great parent to your child

and i really just found a schedule that

worked best for

myself and my daughter and so um

yeah i started training a little less

than two years before the 08 olympics in

beijing

i was in coral springs florida and was

um

really really enjoying it but you know

when i when i first got into it

there were two kinds of people that uh i

would

encounter the first one was the type

that would say

you’re too old to do this why are you

doing this and the second one

was really just my mom and my family

that were like oh if anyone can do it

you can do it

and so um you know i started thinking

about it when i

decided to make this comeback and hadn’t

really started the training yet and

i thought you know what if jack nicholas

can win a masters at 46 years old

and nolan ryan could pitch a no-hitter

at 44 years old

why can’t a 41 year old mom try for an

olympic team and so that’s really what

my

philosophy was was to just think that i

can do it

and i’ll never forget when i when i

finally started my first workout

the first thought that stayed in my head

the entire time that i was training

was that i’m going to win a gold medal

that was my goal

and every day when i woke up i thought

about that and every day when i went to

bed i thought about that

now i wasn’t really sure what to expect

i didn’t know how my body would hold up

at 41 years old

i remember one of my first workouts i

had teenagers in my lane

and we just finished a set had a couple

minutes before our next set and

one 15 year old turned to the 17 year

old and said so who are you taking the

prom

and the other girl is like i think i’m

getting my ears pierced and then i was

thinking god what diapers do i need for

my daughter she’s getting bigger

so it was really sort of a little bit of

a disconnect um

having these teenagers in the pool and i

was 39 years old when i started this

training

but it was also a good setting and good

mesh

because they didn’t want someone older

than their parents beating them

in the pool and i didn’t want some young

whipper snappers beating me

so it really turned into a good

environment for us to train together so

i didn’t know how i was going to do this

i knew that if i was going to do this

and make an olympic team it was going to

be something special

and i knew i had to put a team together

in order to do this i could not do this

by myself

so i did some research and did some

interviewing and

found the best stretching trainers found

the best strength coach

found a coach and a sprint coach that i

was working with

all in the area that i lived and the

great thing about

this was that i surrounded myself with

people who were the best at what they

did

but also didn’t have an ego this was a

team effort i wasn’t doing this by

myself

we were all doing it my job happened to

be the last part which was standing on

the

uh starting blocks and swimming my race

but it was really truly a team effort

and um like i said if i knew i wanted to

be special i had to put a special team

together and so

i never think i did this by myself it

was always people helping me

and it’s very important to allow people

to help you to be the best that you can

be

so i trained for these olympic games it

was a lot different than i’d ever

experienced

i was doing less workouts than i did

when i was younger because my body

couldn’t handle doing

more training that was very hard

mentally for me because i was used to

always doing more than everyone else

i thought well if i do more than

everyone else i’m going to be the best i

can be

and as you get older it’s a little

different when you’re in a sport that

you really

can’t do more than everyone else because

your body just won’t allow it so it was

really important for

myself to listen to my body but also the

most important thing was to believe in

my coach

believe in everyone who was helping me

on this team the stretching trainers my

strength coach everyone

uh you had to believe and buy into what

they’re doing because if you

question things which is okay you can go

up and ask some questions

but if you’re doing it and not

communicating

of what’s going on and you don’t believe

in what they’re doing you’re not going

to be the best that you can be

so um i really bought into what my

coaches were telling me i can do and

what the training was and that was

really important

so i ended up making my fifth olympic

team uh it was very different for me

because

i was so much older than everyone else

on this team i remember

we made the team and went right to

training camp and i thought to myself

wow like am i

the mother here am i the older sister

and the ants because

i was literally older than some of the

coaches that were coaching on the team

and i like to refer to myself as a

bigger sister than the mom but

you know michael phelps kept calling me

mom since his first olympics in 2000

so i kind of went with mom i guess but

anyway it was so different for me

because

i remember one time i woke up to loud

music in the hotel room and i’m like who

is

you know i’m trying to nap who’s playing

the boombox and i get out and i

knock on the door i’m saying i’m trying

to sleep you know this is like my age

kicking in here

and i remember stopping some foo fights

in

the uh cafeteria where we ate and so

it’s just really different for me being

on this team but

i’ll never forget when we landed in

beijing for um

2008 and walking into

the cube which was what the pool was

called when we when we went to the pool

and just thinking to myself oh my gosh

this is so great

to be back at the olympic games and the

other kids were kind of running around

and doing whatever but i really just

kind of took a step back

and realized wow i’m at the olympic

games again this is awesome

so anyway i swam the first relay one of

silver medal

um was getting ready for my last race

which was the 50 freestyle it’s my best

race

one lap one lap you say kind of one and

done and

um i was psyched about it but the night

before my race i remember watching

michael phelps

uh swim the hunter butterfly and he was

losing and he was trying to go for

seven gold medals possibly eight and

this would have been his seventh gold

medal

and i remember watching and he was

literally losing the whole entire race

and just at the very end it still looked

like he lost

but he stretched in there and out

touched this other swimmer

by 1 100th of a second i thought to

myself wow i would hate to lose by 100 a

second that’s gotta be the worst feeling

in the world

okay now fast forward to my next race um

i swam in the finals and i remember

marching out getting ready for my race

and uh what i did that morning is i did

everything i possibly could

to prepare myself i was the first one at

the pool i was um

you know warming up i got stretched i

did everything i was supposed to do

because it’s not it’s not just important

to do everything leading up to that race

it’s important to

do everything you possibly can the day

of the race too so

i get on the blocks i swim my 50

freestyle

i touched the wall i was seated first

going into the finals and let me tell

you i was actually fifth in the world

going into this event at the olympic

games

but when i swam the prelims and

semi-finals i qualified first

this is the first time i’ve ever been in

that situation so anyway i

um i swim my race i touch the wall now i

have really old eyes so i put my goggles

up and i look at the scoreboard and it

says i got second place i’m like all

right

my best individual event was a bronze

that’s okay and then i look and see what

the time was and i see that this girl

beat me by a hundredth of a second i’m

like ah

now i know what it feels like to lose by

a hundredth of a second um

you know it took me a while to really

get over this loss because

um i’m such a competitive person and i

didn’t know

how i was gonna like live with the fact

that i lost by a hundredth of a second

and i never forget on my um flight home

from beijing i uh was thinking

about 17 hours i think on this on this

flight and i was thinking you know what

i have my two-year-old daughter waiting

for me at home

um you know why am i going to be upset i

have everything to look forward to

because i have my my daughter is my life

and she’s waiting for me at home and

i thought to myself you know what did i

give it everything that i possibly could

the answer was yes did i leave no stones

unturned

the answer is yes did i eat and sleep

the way i was supposed to eat and sleep

the answer is yes

did i have to be okay with the fact that

i i lost my 100th of a second

and what i started to do was when i

realized that i was okay with that

i started to think you know what i

didn’t lose by a heart of a second i

want a silver medal in the olympic games

my third silver medal in these olympic

games and the other medal came in a

relay too so i had two relays

silver medals and and the 50 freestyle

and i had to be okay with that i

had to be okay with that because um i

gave it everything i had and there was

nothing else i had left to give

and when i landed and saw my daughter

obviously that was

the most special thing for me but i knew

that i was going to teach her one day

that as long as you give it all you’ve

got that’s all anyone can ask for

and you know people ask me all the time

what it takes to wage a successful

comeback

it’s simply rea it’s excuse me it’s

simple really

you have to want to want it you have to

keep winning and you have to want it

badly

you have to be determined to move closer

to reaching your full potential rather

than let your goal slip away

and um i just want to close by saying

you know people

ask me what my favorite medal is it’s

really not about the medals i mean

obviously you’re swimming to get a medal

but what i learned as i got older is

it’s about

the road that took you there it was

about learning

what made you be the best that you can

be because

um those medals are great but that’s not

what

defines me it’s what took me there to be

the best that i can be it’s what i

learned about it

and being an olympic medalist wasn’t

just about my races at the olympic games

it was the thousands of races that led

up to that one moment

those that excel in the game within the

game become great

thank you