2008 Olympics

Last week I had the pleasure of interviewing Dara Torres, the amazing Olympian, swimmer, and mom who made headlines at Beijing when she swam for a comeback at age 41. She won three silver medals and also won me over.

Not only did Torres give me lots of great advice on health, training, and fitness, but she also shared some insight on how she balances intense training with a (relatively) normal personal life. She was funny and refreshingly honest. Better yet, I've got a video excerpt of our interview! Check it out below.

To read some more of my favorite excerpts from the interview, read more

The number of visitors to China dropped by two million last year to 130 million, despite the enormous fanfare and draw of the 2008 Olympics. It was the first decline in visitor numbers since 2003, when an outbreak of SARS knocked the country off desired vacay location lists.

The slump has been attributed to the weak economy, which hasn't been kind to the tourism industry as a whole, stricter visa restrictions before the Beijing Olympics, as well as a May earthquake in the southwest of the country.

Only 389,000 foreign tourists visited Beijing the month of the games, including travelers from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, according to the Beijing tourism bureau. That number is much smaller than the 500,000 the bureau expected. China built the world's largest airport terminal before the Olympics and most of the major hotels in Beijing underwent costly renovations and changes from top to bottom.

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It may not be quite as exciting as winning eight gold medals, but Michael Phelps has won again — in FitSugar's best Olympic moment of 2008 poll. Though he was bested in the favorite Olympian poll by Shawn Johnson, his record-breaking moment garnered 40 percent of your votes, and the thrill of his victory was also the favorite of CitizenSugar readers.

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While the opening ceremony and women's gymnastics nearly tied for silver, Michael Phelps's record-breaking performance won him yet another gold. With 54 percent of your votes, he easily dove into the Best of 2008 on both our poll and Pop's poll.

He's still soaking in the gold light while promoting his book, posing for magazine covers, and appearing on talk shows like the Colbert Report. Look for him in London in 2012 where he plans to swim again, but not break any records. Because, really, whose record would he break — his?

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