SELECCIONES: Never Say Never
— -- Dara Torres
A hard, cold rain sweeps over an outdoor pool at the Coral Springs Aquatic Complex in South Florida, driving bystanders to huddle under an awning. In the pool, Dara Torres keeps swimming. Lap after methodical lap, flip turn after flip turn, she cuts through her lane with a muscular freestyle. And when lifeguards sound a lightning alarm, warning the swimmers out of the pool, she persists, refusing to be deterred even as the storm builds. At 41, nearly twice the age of most world-class athletes in her sport, Torres has become the first over-40 swimmer to compete in the Olympic Games. The three silver medals she got in Beijing is her answer to the dismissive comments of other athletes.
"Some competitors of mine say I'm too old," says Torres, a four-time Olympian who's won four gold medals and is the mother of a two-year-old girl. "Someone was quoted saying, 'I don't know why she's still swimming. She should be staying home taking care of her kid.' As long as I'm swimming as fast as they are, what's the problem?"
Actually, she's swimming faster. The Olympic trials begin on June 29, and Torres is currently the fastest American woman in her event: the 50-meter freestyle. "You shouldn't put an age on your dreams," she says. "People need to try, not say, 'I can't do this because I'm too old.' "
Donald Arthur
Donald Arthur ticks off the marathons he's done in the last 12 years: New York City (ten times), Los Angeles, Alaska … 27 in all. His goal is to complete the grueling 26.2-mile road race in each of the 50 states; he has 34 to go. And yet it wasn't so long ago that Arthur couldn't so much as chew his food without becoming exhausted. "To walk a block could take me more than an hour," says the 63-year-old retired bookkeeper, who lives in the Bronx, New York. Facing death from dilated cardiomyopathy, an enlarged heart he blames on decades of cigarettes and alcohol, Arthur had only one option, his doctors told him: a transplant.
He recalls the precise moment-6:10 p.m. on August 2, 1996-when he got the call that a donor heart had become available. A 25-year-old man named Fitzgerald Gittens had died from a bullet intended for someone else. After five hours in surgery, Arthur had a brand-new heart. Soon enough, he could walk up stairs without tiring.
Related Stories
ABC News Live