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