Dara Torres is a former Olympic swimmer. At 14, she won the national open championship in the 50-yard freestyle by defeating the then-current champion, Jill Sterkel, a college junior.

Torres is a 12-time Olympic medalist and former world record-holder in three events. Torres was the first swimmer to represent the United States in five Olympic Games (1984-2008), and at age 41, was the oldest swimmer to earn a place on the U.S. Olympic team. At the 2008 Summer Olympics, she competed in the 50-meter freestyle, 4×100-meter medley relay, and 4×100-meter freestyle relay, and won silver medals in all three events. Torres has won 12 Olympic medals and is one of three women with the most Olympic women's swimming medals. The others are fellow Americans Jenny Thompson and Natalie Coughlin. Torres won five medals at the 2000 Summer Olympics, when at age 33, she was the oldest member of the 2000 U.S. Olympic swim team. She has also won at least one medal in each of the five Olympics in which she has competed, making her one of only a handful of Olympians to earn medals in five different Games. 

Torres has worked in television as a reporter and announcer for American networks NBC, ESPN, TNT, OLN, and Fox News Channel, and hosted the golf show, The Clubhouse on the Resort Sports Network. She has also worked as a model, and was the first elite swimmer to model swimwear in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, appearing in the 1994 edition. She was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2005.