Olympic swimming trials: Must be something in the water

OMAHA - As she prepared to climb the starting block for Thursday's preliminaries, Dara Torres saw a familiar swimming official. "She's been a starter ever since I was very young,'' said Torres, now 41. "I looked at her and smiled and said, 'Here we are again.'''

Who could have guessed? Though it's been 24 years since her first Olympics, Torres touched the wall first in her preliminary heat of the 100-meter freestyle at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials and finished second to American record holder Natalie Coughlin in the semifinals. At an age when most swimmers are enjoying retirement, starting second careers and having children -- all of which Torres has done -- the California native has gotten back into the pool for a shot at making her fifth Olympic team.

Torres will swim the final of the 100 free tonight and is expected to go to Beijing as a member of the 400 free relay. Already the first American to swim in four Summer Games, Torres is more than twice as old as current U.S. star Katie Hoff and became the oldest swimming gold medalist in U.S. history with her two relay golds at the 2000 Olympics. With 2-year-old daughter Tessa cheering her on, she emerged from a second retirement bearing the flag for all aging athletes.

"I was very anxious, very nervous,'' Torres said after clocking a time of 54.57 seconds in her first swim, third-best in the preliminaries. "I wasn't expecting to be that nervous. It felt like my first Olympic trials.

"Age is just a number. I have great coaches and great people around me. I'm able to recover, and at my age it's all about recovery.''

Torres set her first world record at age 15 and made her first Olympic team in 1984, when she was 17. A sprint specialist, she won gold that year in the 400 free relay, the first of her nine Olympic medals.

Two more Olympic berths followed, in 1988 and 1992. Torres retired for seven years before competing in the 2000 Games at 33, when she won five medals as the most decorated female athlete at those Olympics. She retired again, gave birth to Tessa, enjoyed a career as a television host and swam in masters' events.

At the masters' world championships, many athletes encouraged her to make another Olympic run. A relentless worker with a flawless stroke, Torres gathered coaches who could maximize her ability while understanding the physical needs of an athlete in her 40s.

She ended the 2007 season ranked fourth in the world in the 50 free and set the U.S. record of 24.53 seconds. That raised questions about whether she was using performance-enhancing drugs to achieve those times. Torres anticipated such suspicion and chose to pre-empt it by volunteering for extra, in-depth blood and urine testing by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

"I told [officials] I wanted to be an open book,'' said Torres, who has had 12 to 15 tests since March. "You can DNA test me, blood test me, urine test me, whatever you want to do, because I want people to know I am doing this right. I am clean, and I want a clean sport.

"I swam against swimmers who were dirty my entire life. It's just something I wouldn't do. It's a real pain, but I asked for this, and I want to prove I'm clean. I need to prove that a 40-year-old is doing this clean and doing it the right way.''

Thursday, Hoff -- whom Torres defeated in her preliminary heat -- said it would be "really neat'' to have Torres as an Olympic teammate. Plenty of others are rooting for her, too.

"When I first started, people were saying I was an inspiration,'' said Torres, who swam a 53.76 in the semis. "So many people come up to me now and tell me their stories, I feel like I'm getting inspiration from other people. It's been a whirlwind the last year and a half.''