Q and A with Tara Kirk

I can't possibly list all of her accolades so I'll do my best just to quickly summarize. Tara Kirk possesses an accomplished NCAA career in which she is the only woman in history to have won the NCAA 100 yard Breaststroke Championship all 4 years and was named 2004 NCAA Swimmer of the Year. She holds American records in all breaststroke distances both short course meters and yards, three National titles and is the only woman to have gone sub-58 in the 100 yard distance. She has a 2004 Olympic Silver medal in the 4x100 Medley Relay and countless World/International Gold, Silver and Bronze medals in the 50, 100, and 200 Breaststroke distances, both short course and long course. In addition to her numerous athletic accomplishments, she is one half of the first sister duo to qualify for the US Olympic Swim Team (Athens 2004 with sister Dana) and she holds a Masters degree from Stanford in Anthropological Sciences where her master's thesis was entitled "Reflections: Using Avian Influenza to Investigate the Pandemic of 1918". Pretty freaking impressive.


AP Photo - Tara accepting the 2003-2004 Honda-Broderick Cup

1. How do you feel with where your training is overall right now? Are you still tweaking your stroke/training program or do you know what needs to be done and it's just a matter of implementing now?

I think that I am still working on maintaining my stroke, especially when I get stressed out. I know I have a pretty good stroke but sometimes I slip into my old habits. I have to be constantly vigilant to prevent that from happening. As for training, I think that I'm coming around on that. The fall was rough but after making the realization of "If I keep training like this, I'm not going to make the team" things have been going A LOT better.

2. Ok, the question I'm asking all Breaststrokers...How have you adapted to the new dolphin kick and what were your feelings regarding the rule change? Overdue or unnecessary?

I'm still working on getting as much from the dolphin kick as possible. If everyone is going to do it then I am going to try and do it the best. As to whether I like the rule change or not - I'd rather have the dolphin kick legal for everyone to do than have one or two people cheating and getting away with it. It would have been better if the officials could just call it but if they weren't calling it then the only option was to make it legal.

3. Are we all going to die from bird flu?

No, I don't think that we are all going to die from bird flu. But I wouldn't totally discount it either. Over recorded history, influenza has proven itself to be both ever changing and deadly. The best way to prevent disaster is to invest in a better health care system, that way regardless of what comes our way, we are ready to respond.

4. Your sister Dana is both your National team and Stanford teammate, as well as a great cheerleader for you. Is she your secret weapon at a big meet?

No, Dana isn't my secret weapon at a big meet. She is my very obvious weapon (chocolate is my secret weapon). Usually, I swim great when she's there cheering for me. However, I get stressed out when she is swimming because I want her to do well so badly.

5. Give us the wedding scoop! When is it going to happen? What kind of dress? Church or outdoor? Who is the lucky guy?

The lucky guy, Greg, is currently a grad student at Stanford. We met while we were both undergrads and living in the same campus run house (kind of like a frat house but run by the university with 25 guys and 25 girls living there and an awesome chef to cook us food). As we say at Stanford, it was dormcest. Greg and I are tentatively thinking of a wedding date in August 2009 at a resort in Washington where they do weddings a lot. I just don't want to be stressed out by the event so I wanted a place where they would take care of almost everything. I haven't looked at dresses yet but I am eliminating anything puffy. I am to stocky already to have anything that makes me look any wider.

Photo courtesy of lala - Tara and Brendan kick it at Duel in the Pool

The women's breaststroke events at Trials will be insanely competitive, dare I even compare the women's breaststroke field to the men's backstroke field? Tara's 2007 World Silver medal in the 100 Breast certainly demonstrates her ability and I know we all wish her the best of luck. Be sure to check out her Blog over at WCSN.