OMAHA, Neb. | Dara Torres latched onto the lane barrier and squinted at the scoreboard.
Sure enough, Torres, a 41-year-old former gold medalist, did it again — advanced in this young woman’s game and on to the final round of the 100-meter freestyle at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials.
Torres is 16 years older than her next-oldest competitor, but on Thursday a tenth of a second separated Torres from the event’s 25-year-old winner, Natalie Coughlin.
She looked like one of the young ones out there. Until it was time to leave the pool, that is.
“I’m not 20,” she said with a laugh. “I can’t just jump out of the water.”
So here’s the quick version: Torres’ first Olympics was in 1984. She won a gold medal that year when she was 17. All but two of her 15 competitors in the semifinals had yet to be born in 1984. She has appeared in four Olympics but none since 2000.
Eight years later, here she is, one race and an identical finish from going to Beijing.
Now here’s the big question: Is it legit? The questions are there, following Torres whenever she steps into a room with tape recorders and video cameras. How can a woman nearly twice the age of some of the world’s best swimmers not just hang with them but beat them — unless she’s cheating?
Yes, Torres is suspected of doping. No, she doesn’t hide that she expected such a thing. Torres said this week that her performances have astonished even her, and she has volunteered for comprehensive drug screenings — blood and urine tests — to prove it’s Torres and not the work of chemicals.
“I need to prove that a 40-year-old is doing this clean and doing it the right way,” she said. “Now, if anyone questions me, there is nothing else I can do.”
Torres said she is as disgusted with sports and doping the same as everyone. She understands that nothing astounding happens anymore without suspicion. Home-run hitters and aging football players — all of them play under the same dark cloud and have to answer for it.
Sometimes they answer incorrectly. Former sprinter Marion Jones said she didn’t take performance-enhancing drugs, and she’s serving a six-month prison sentence for lying about it to federal agents.
Torres said she understands. But she said this is different.
“I am clean, and I want a clean sport,” Torres said. “I swam against swimmers who were dirty my entire life, and it’s just something I wouldn’t do.
“I could sit here and look all of you guys and say I am not doping. But I have to prove it now, and that’s why I have done this.”
So she stood there Thursday, leaning forward on that starting platform with swimmers nearly half her age. She said the butterflies wouldn’t let her think of doping or suspicion or whether any one of the more than 12,000 people crammed into the Qwest Center believed her.
The starting gun sounded, and Torres jumped in. Her reaction time was the fastest. A little more than 53 seconds later, she finished with the second-best time of the day — and, yes, nearly a second faster than her personal best. Faster than when she was 17 or 21 or 25. And faster than all but one of those kids swimming in the lanes next to her.
“I was obviously very excited,” Torres said. “Going into the night, I just felt different. I felt more confident. I had nerves, but they were good nerves.”
After the race, that’s when she disappeared. She went to the cool-down pool, the one she didn’t need years ago. Back then, she didn’t need to stretch or do pilates or any of the things that keep an aging body limber and strong.
Things are different now.
“Dara is a little bit high maintenance,” said Torres’ coach, Michael Lohberg.
When she was finished stretching and cooling down, Torres stood in one of those rooms again. It was one of those with the tape recorders and video cameras and suspicious eyes.
She was holding her baby and smiling while she answered the questions. The cameras zoomed in close. Yes, she looks 41. Until she gets in the pool, that is.
“I don’t know what to expect,” Torres said of today’s final. “I’m just going to go out there and have fun. We’ll see how this 41-year-old body holds up.”
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