CORAL SPRINGS, FLA. - Leave it to Dara Torres to come up with an encore to an Olympic swimming career without precedent.
Winning three silver medals at age 41 in 2008 made her the oldest Olympic swimming medalist in her fifth Games; she has won a record-tying 12 medals overall. Now Torres, of Parkland, Fla., is training for one more reprise in 2012, a year after undergoing radical knee surgery as well as a procedure on her left shoulder in May.
"I always enjoy challenges," she says. "It's different this time, because I don't feel like I have anything to prove. I'm doing it for myself."
Her daily routine is a delicate balance between rehab and preparation for competition. She cannot yet kick full force in the water, but the doctor says her recovery is six months ahead of schedule, and she hopes to swim in a meet by next spring.
Torres says she will concentrate only on the 50-meter freestyle, the event she missed winning by .01-second at Beijing. It's easy to wonder: All that work for the possibility of racing for 24 seconds in two years?
"She has fun doing it," says Michael Lohberg, her coach. "Quite, frankly, if somebody is having fun doing something, why would they stop?"
Observe Torres through a two-hour workout at Coral Springs Aquatic Complex, and it does appear as simple as that. She is relaxed in the water -- at work but peaceful, she says.
It was 1984 when Torres was the "bouncy, energetic kid in awe of everyone else" at her first Olympics. The energy level is the constant that has bridged the generation gap while everything else has changed.
