Dara 'Deja Vu' Torres returns for another Olympics

An aging athlete stuns the swimming world by coming out of retirement after an eight-year sabbatical to become the oldest woman ever to qualify for the U.S. Olympic swimming team.

Sounds familiar, right? That was Dara Torres -- eight years ago.

At age 33, Torres won five medals at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, leaving competitors and observers shaking their heads in disbelief.

Flash forward eight years, and here we go again.

Torres dove back into the pool following a long retirement -- and after having a baby girl, Tessa, in 2006 -- she has emerged leaner, stronger and somehow even faster.

Torres won the 50- and 100-meter freestyle at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials in July in Omaha, setting an American record in the 50 and swimming a personal-best in the 100.

At age 41.

Torres was at least 15 years older than the other finalists in her trials events. Only one of her competitors had even been born when Torres won her first Olympic medal at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

How is this humanly possible?

"Age is just a number," said Torres at the Olympic trials. "I have a great number of people working with me as far as stretchers, strength and conditioning coach ... I have great coaches around me and great people around me. I am able to recover and at my age it's all about recovery. It's not just the stuff physically but it's also what I put in my body. I take these awesome amino acids that help with recovery and build strength. I eat well and I think it's just a combination of a lot things. I can't just say it's this, this and that. It's a lot of things."

One thing it isn't -- Torres insists -- is performance-enhancing drugs. Whispers about drug use swirled around Torres eight years ago, and her remarkable times this summer have fueled a new round of suspicion.

Anticipating such accusations, Torres approached U.S. doping officials earlier this year and volunteered for extra testing.

"Unfortunately, there have been athletes who have sat there in the past and looked everyone in the eyes and said 'I am not taking drugs,'" said Torres, who will be competing in her fifth Olympic Games. "Now they are in jail or indicted or whatever and you are now guilty until proven innocent. That's why I stepped up and asked to be tested.

"They come at all times, any time, and if I am out doing stuff I have to turn around and come home so I get tested. It's a pain, it's a real pain, but I asked for this and I want to prove that I'm clean so for me it's worth it. Unfortunately, it cuts into my time with my daughter, cuts some time with training, but I need to do this. I need to prove that a 40-year-old is doing this clean and doing it the right way and now if anyone questions me, there is nothing else I can do. I have given myself out there. I have done blood tests, urine tests, anything that they want to test I have agreed to do. So if anyone accuses me of anything I take it as a compliment."

In one concession to her age, Torres decided not to compete in the 100 at the Beijing Olympics. Instead she'll concentrate on the 50 and the 4 x 100 relay. Her first swim in Beijing could come as early as Aug. 9 if U.S. coaches pencil her into the heats of relay.

Some of her former teammates, now long since retired, said at the trials that they are impressed but not shocked by Torres' return.

"She's beautiful. She's middle-aged, I'm middle-aged ... she's my hero," said Mel Stewart, 39, who won two gold medals at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. "Dara has never left. We all know her. She's never stopped training. She's always been in shape, she's always been fit and she's always been fast."

"I don't think it's a surprise that she is doing so well," added Jenny Thompson, 35, whose 12 Olympic medals are the most for any swimmer. "She's a tremendously hard worker and very talented and compulsive about training and nutrition and sleep and doing all the right things. Age is sort of irrelevant."

But 41? The next oldest American woman on the Olympic team is 26-year-old Amanda Beard. She's so old that 23-year-old Michael Phelps even calls her mom.

"I would rather refer to it as a big sister to my teammates although I am as old as some of their parents," said Torres. "It's nice to be able to be there for the kids if they have questions. They probably feel comfortable talking to me. I feel like I'm on their level on the one hand, but I have all this experience on the other hand that I'm maybe not on their level. I'll take that as a compliment that Phelps refers to me as the mom there, but I don't know if the kids think that."

(E-mail David Nielsen at nielsend(at)shns.com. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)