Biography dara torres

Swimmer Dara Torres won 12 Olympic medals over a nearly year span from age 17 to

But success in the pool early on in her career hid struggles with a serious eating disorder.

Torres talks about that in-depth for the first time in a documentary that airs on the SEC Network on Monday called “Once Upon A Comeback.”

As a swimmer at the University of Florida during the ‘80s, Torres says she faced pressure from coaches, particularly Randy Reese, to lose weight.

At the time, the coaches didn’t know a lot about eating disorders, she says.

One coach wanted the team to look intimidating to competitors on the starting blocks and set a weight goal for the swimmers to meet, she says. If someone didn’t make weight, they had to do extra workouts.

“For me personally, having come from a background where I've never trained like that before in my life, to have to do extra workouts was just, that wasn't going to happen for me,” she says.

“And one t