Once and future Atlantans Ryan Seacrest and Maya DiRado met up over the weekend and much of their conversation had to do with her upcoming move here.
Seacrest's hosting a live late night show from Rio for NBC during the Olympics and early Saturday morning, surprise swimming star DiRado was his guest.
Yes, she told Seacrest, she's really still retiring and moving to Atlanta to start working for McKinsey & Co. on Sept. 9. No, winning two gold medals and four overall hadn't made her rethink her decision to hang up her Speedo for good.
“I’m sure,” DiRado said just hours after she’d pulled off a huge upset to win the 200 meter backstroke over three time gold medalist Hungarian Katinka Hosszú. Fiddling with the gold medal hanging around her neck, DiRado explained: “This has been so amazing and so worth, really, 15 years of training. But what a way to go out. These will be the best memories I’ve ever had of swimming.”
The 23-year-old Californian graduated from Stanford in 2014, then took time off to prepare for the Games. Former Dunwoody resident Seacrest asked her what she thought her first days as a business analyst in the Atlanta office of management consulting firm McKinsey might be like.
“I don’t know!” DiRado exclaimed, flashing a huge smile at the crowd gathered around NBC’s outdoor set on Copacabana Beach. “I think I’m going to be in for a rude awakening. But I’m excited to work hard in a different way and just meet a bunch of different people.”
(In fact, a McKinsey spokesman told the AJC for a story last week that DiRado's future co-workers were "very excited" by her success at the Games. And at that point, she'd "only" won one measly silver medal)
The entire 10-minute interview was quite entertaining, with DiRado revealing that the six residents of her “baller” suite at the Athletes Village included four-time gold medalist Katie Ledecky and historic 100 meter freestyle winner Simone Manuel.
"It was unreal," DiRado said about the reaction in the suite to Manuel's victory, the first ever individual swimming gold won by an African American woman. "There were so many tears last night from everyone … Katie had to swim tonight but she stayed up till like 3:30 a.m. when Simone got back."
Mostly, though, they all talk about food, she told Seacrest. Specifically, the first meal each is going to have upon her return to the United States. Very likely “some Mexican and some Margaritas” for DiRado.
The segment ended with the duo learning some moves from a Brazilian dance troupe. Then, as DiRado was leaving the set, the microphones picked up this final, priceless exchange between them:
“Good luck with your career,” Seacrest said. “My mom will say ‘hi’ to you. She lives in the Atl.”
“Really?” Dorado called back over her shoulder.
Seacrest: “Yeah. And she’ll definitely want to cook for you.”
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