Dara Torres to be speaker at Palm Beach County High School Sports Awards
The Palm Beach Post is proud to announce Dara Torres as the special guest speaker at the 2023 Palm Beach County High School Sports Awards on Friday, June 9 at Dreyfoos Hall. Doors open at 6.
The show is produced with support from Baptist Health Orthopedic Care.
More than 200 high school athletes from across the Palm Beach County area will be honored. The show will also name players of the year for 30 sports and include several major awards, including overall Players of the Year, Team of the Year, Coach of the Year and a Courage Award.
“I am thrilled to host the Palm Beach County High School Sports Awards and celebrate these outstanding student athletes,” said Torres, tied as the most decorated US female Olympic athlete of all time while competing in five Olympic Games (1984, 1988, 1992, 2000, and 2008). “These kids have worked hard to get where they are today, and I am honored to help recognize their dedication and diligence,” said Torres.
Since her first international race at the age of 14, Torres proved to be far from the average athlete. At the University of Florida, she earned the maximum possible number of 28 NCAA All-American swimming awards. As the first US swimmer to compete in four Olympic Games, she set three World records and won nine Olympic medals, including four gold.
In the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games alone, after a seven-year break from competitive swimming, Dara won gold in the 400m freestyle and 400m medley relay and bronze in the 50m freestyle, 100m freestyle, and the 100m butterfly. After the 2000 Olympics, Dara retired again to start a family, but dove right back into swimming in the 2006 Masters Nationals, where she broke a world record just three weeks after her daughter’s birth. And in August 2007, Torres won another National title and broke her own 7-year old American record in the 50 Freestyle.
Outside of swimming, Torres has made a name for herself as a TV commentator and a print model and was the first athlete to appear in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue in 1994. She was a feature correspondent for “Good Morning America, worked on-air for ESPN, TNT and Fox News Channel including stints on “NHL Cool Shots” and “Fox Sports Sunday.”
Six-time Olympic coach Michael Lohberg described Torres's drive as "just amazing... To make a run at the Olympics for a 40-year-old mother seems totally out of the question .... But Dara is not measured by normal standards. She is truly an exception, defying several laws of life."
Torres successfully made another comeback to competitive swimming by making her fifth Olympic squad. She won a total of 3 silver medals at Beijing in 2008.
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Tickets for the general public and guests of nominated athletes can be purchased at this link.
Nominated athletes can register for their free ticket to the show here, thanks to sponsors.
Learn more on the program and see which athletes have already been named nominees on the Palm Beach County High School Sports Awards home page.
The Palm Beach County High School Sports Awards is part of the USA Today High School Sports Awards program, the largest high school sports recognition program in the country.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Dara Torres to speak at Palm Beach County High School Sports Awards
