We Love: Dara Torres

We cannot let the 2008 Olympic Games end without making mention of Voice’s favorite female athlete, Dara Torres. At age 41, Torres is the oldest woman to compete at the Olympics, and in the 2008 Beijing Games she took home three silver medals, missing out on one gold by a literal fingertip. She’s the veteran of five previous Olympic Games, having first competed in Los Angeles in 1984, a year before her USA Swimming teammate Michael Phelps was born. She’s also one of the few moms in competition, having given birth to her daughter Tessa in 2006. Watching her race, her speed and form leave it all but impossible to imagine she’s older than her fellow swimmers, many who are decades her junior. As her 22-year-old teammate Christine Magnuson says, “She’s really taken the age factor out of the sport.”

Congratulations to Torres for winning her three silver medals, and for showing the world that a woman over forty is capable of anything.