Why Maya DiRado, 23, will retire from swimming after Olympics
RIO DE JANEIRO – Maya DiRado begins a one-week goodbye to competitive swimming Saturday. It’s a shame for a nation that’s just gotten to know the breakout star of American swimming this summer, but this is it.
When her three events in these Summer Olympics are over, she will retire at the ripe old age of 23.
Why now? Why quit at the top of her game?
Because, quite frankly, she’s got better things to do.
Despite DiRado’s obvious physical talents, her mind is even more impressive. She skipped second grade, got a perfect math score on the SAT and graduated from Stanford with a degree in management science and engineering. She has a job lined up in Atlanta working for a management consulting firm, McKinsey & Company, in September.
With a brain like that, the professional swimming life can become tedious. There’s only so much thought that can go into the 200-meter backstroke. The 18 months DiRado has spent between college graduation and that upcoming job have been wildly rewarding, but at a cost.
[Related: Michael Phelps wasn’t trying in 2012]
“I was so bored!” she exclaimed. “That was honestly one of the hardest parts of this. Summers swimming … you just veg out, go to practice, come back, watch TV, nap. And that’s fine, but after a couple of months of that you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, I can feel my brain atrophying!’
“At one point I was like, ‘Well, if I keep swimming, was Stanford the most stressed my brain was ever going to get?’ And that totally freaked me out. That further confirmed my decision to go into the working world after this.”
To combat the freakout and keep brain atrophy at bay, DiRado asked her husband, Rob Andrews, for some help. He’s a software engineer for Renaissance Learning.
“He will give me [software] coding exercises to do and that’s kind of fun,” DiRado said.
Sure, a blast. Most of us would run screaming from that kind of fun. But then again, most of us weren’t ready for Stanford at age 17.
So the business world will be a welcome change for DiRado. Someone whose identity is not fully formed by her fastest swimming times is ready for the next challenge.
“She has such a sense of who she is as a person,” said DiRado’s coach at Stanford and as a pro, Greg Meehan. “A lot of that comes from her parents [Ruben and Marit] – they’re really grounded, value education, value humility, value faith. Maya is an incredibly hard worker in the pool and very detail-oriented, but that’s not all she is.”
Still, it’s the swimming that will bring her face into America’s living rooms starting Saturday and throughout the next week. She’s good at that, too. DiRado is the top American qualifier in the 400 individual medley, 200 IM and 200 backstroke.
DiRado’s primary job in those events will be trying to chase down Hungarian Katinka Hosszu, who has been the dominant IMer in the world for several years. Nicknamed “Iron Lady,” Hosszu is the only woman who has gone under 4 minutes, 30 seconds in the 400 IM in the last two years; DiRado is the only other woman besides Hosszu who has gone under 4:32.
There are several other international contenders in that race, which will be contested Saturday (prelims in the afternoon, finals at night). But if DiRado can improve upon her 4:31.71 time from the World Championships last summer, she can apply some race pressure to Hosszu – who folded under the weight of huge expectations in 2012, failing to win a single medal.
The two will face off again in the 200 IM (prelims and semifinals Monday, final on Tuesday), but Hosszu will be difficult to catch in that event. And they’re both entered in the 200 back (prelims and semis Thursday, final on Friday), where they are two of five women in the world with 2016 best times between 2:06.49 and 2:06.92. That race could be a free-for-all.
Any medal would be an accomplishment, of course. But after a dominant Olympic trials performance, expectations have risen. DiRado could well make multiple podium appearances.
And then, when that last 200 backstroke is finished, Maya DiRado will take off her racing suit for the last time. There’s a whole other life to get to.
“Some people see it as ‘Oh, you’re swimming so well, so why not keep going?’ “ DiRado said. “But I think part of the reason why I am swimming so well is knowing that I have a hard stop date, and so it’s so much easier to be excited about all of this and give it everything I have when I know that this is my last go-through.
“I don’t think that’s a sign that I need to keep swimming. I think it’s a sign that my preparation this year has been really good and that I’m ready to move on to something new.”
More Olympic coverage on Yahoo Sports:
