In a sport littered with precocious prodigies, 41-year-old swimming mum Dara Torres shatters the mold.
Torres was a talented teen herself when she won her first Olympic swimming gold in Los Angeles in 1984.
Now she will tackle her fifth Games campaign in Beijing alongside teammates and rivals young enough to be her children.
PHOTO: AP
US superstar Michael Phelps, 23, calls Torres his “sort-of mom.”
Torres, whose daughter Tessa was born in 2006, says she prefers to think of herself as a “big sister” or maybe “aunt” to her teammates.
“It’s nice to be able to be there for the kids if they have questions,” Torres said. “They probably feel comfortable talking to me. I feel like I’m on their level on 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, but I don’t know if the kids think that.”
Torres owns nine Olympic medals, starting with that first relay gold in 1984.
Her five medals in 2000 capped a comeback from a seven-year retirement.
When she launched her latest return, Torres was aiming for another relay berth and she surprised herself with a victory in the 100m freestyle, ahead of American record-holder Natalie Coughlin, at the US trials.
“I was shocked when I touched the wall. I couldn’t see the scoreboard,” Torres said. “With my age and everything, I said ‘what does that say?’ Then I heard the announcer and I could kind of see it blurry. They need to make those numbers a little bigger up there for people my age.”
After winning the 50m freestyle at the trials, Torres has elected to forego the 100m freestyle individual event in Beijing, preferring to focus her energy on the one-lap sprint and relays.
Torres was 16 years old when she set a 50m freestyle world record in January of 1983. The following year she was part of the US 4x100m freestyle relay in Los Angeles that delivered her first Olympic gold.
Over the course of her “first” career, she went on to capture 4x100m freestyle relay bronze at the Seoul Olympics, and 4x100m freestyle gold as part of a world record-setting team in Barcelona.
Torres then left swimming, concentrating on a burgeoning career in modeling and media, until launching her first comeback in 1999, which ended with her five-medal haul in Sydney that included three individual bronze (50m freestyle, 100m freestyle and 100m butterfly).
As in her first return, Torres knows that her second comeback is bound to prompt speculation in a sports world weary of doping scandals.
This time around, after discussion with her coach Michael Lohberg, Torres has met that issue head on, volunteering for a US Anti-Doping program that tests a select group of athletes far beyond the World Anti-Doping Agency requirements.
“When Michael and I were in Rome and I had some pretty fast times, we sat down and said: ‘OK, now people are going to start talking,’” Torres said. “I wanted to be proactive.”
She told USADA’s Travis Tygart that she wanted extra testing.
“I told him I wanted to be an open book,” Torres said. “You can DNA test me, blood test me, urine test me, whatever you want to do, just test me. I want people to know I am doing this right, that I am 41 years old and I am clean and I want a clean sport.”
Having done what she can to dispel doubts, Torres says there is only one downside to her history-making bid.
“It’s sort of bittersweet for me because I made my fifth Olympic team, but I’m going to be away from my daughter for a month and that’s going to be real hard emotionally,” she said. “I’m happy I’m going to Beijing.”
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB