Olympic success can defy age

I start training tomorrow. Or maybe the next day. The 2012 Summer Olympics in London are just around the corner.

Given my recent lack of exercise, I’m a little slow getting out of the starting blocks to train for the XXX Olympiad. But until last week I honestly thought I was too old to go for the gold and to represent my country.

Not according to Dara Torres.

I haven’t actually conversed with Ms. Torres. But her example speaks volumes. More than four decades along in life, after three knee operations and rotator cuff surgery, Torres is still capable of racing competitively in 50- and 100-meter freestyle swimming events, and of winning. Just for good measure, she set an American record in the 50 meters during the U.S. swimming trials at Omaha, Neb.

Of course, given the current climate in sports, Torres’ performance immediately raises questions about the use of performance-enhancing drugs, allegations that dogged her in 2000. But the swimmer now regularly and willingly submits to blood and urine tests that so far have proven negative. (She did take treatments for infertility, and is seen poolside with Tessa, her two-year-old daughter.)

Torres returned recently from a six-year competitive hiatus, the second extended layoff of her career, to earn a spot on the 2008 American Olympic squad. Beijing will be her fifth Olympics; she won her first gold medal at Los Angeles in 1984, when she was 17. Overall, she has nine Olympic medals, four of them golds.

Torres is highly competitive – her significant other, David Hoffman, describes her as a “Type A++” personality – but experience has taught the wisdom of picking her spots. Shortly after the Olympic Trials ended, Torres dropped the 100 meters from her repertoire. She will compete next month in China in the 50 meters and perhaps a pair of relays. “It’s a lot of swimming,” the Floridian told reporters. “I am 41; I am realistic.”

I am realistic too. I’m also a tad older than Torres. Well, more than a tad. Still, I figure if she can make a splash at her advanced age, maybe there’s hope for me as well.

Torres is not just seasoned, she’s the oldest female swimmer ever in an Olympics.

“It’s unusual,” conceded Dr. William J. Mallon, a Durham orthopedic surgeon and widely acknowledged expert on the Games. Four men of more advanced years previously swam in Olympic competition, said Mallon. The oldest was Satoshi Maruya of Japan, 51 in 1968.

I have no illusions about following in the wake of those denizens of the deep. I doubt I’d have much luck with competitive swimming, anyway. No one makes a swimsuit that’s sufficiently high tech to overcome the drag-inducing curvatures my body has mysteriously developed over the years. Science can only do so much; any success I achieved in the pool would be more a matter of science fiction.

But Mallon helpfully noted that other Olympic sports -- shooting and equestrian events, sailing, archery -- have accommodated a far greater age range than swimming. Those sports produced the true senior citizens of the modern Olympics, by any standard. Oscar Swahn of Sweden and Arthur von Pongracz of Austria both participated at age 72. That’s about as much older than me as I am older than Torres.

Von Pongracz competed in 1936 as a member of the Austrian dressage team, which finished fourth, just out of the medal race. Swahn was a particularly rare bird. He first qualified for the Olympics when he was 60, in 1908, winning two gold medals and a bronze in shooting. He returned in 1912 and 1920. Overall he captured six medals in “running deer,” single- and double-shot, team and individual events.

Each year that Oscar Swahn competed in shooting, so did his son, Alfred Swahn. Both also made Sweden’s 1924 Olympic roster. Alf Swahn won three medals in ‘24, but his father was too ill to attend, Mallon said. The elder Swahn died three years later at age 80.

Oscar Swahn became the oldest gold medalist ever, reprising his shooting success at age 64 in 1912. He was about nine months older than Galen Spencer of the United States, another 64-year-old who won a gold in archery in 1904. For point of reference, that is the same age as Virginia football coach Al Groh.

Dara Torres is not nearly that old. But, in a sport replete with teens and athletes in their 20s, her age sets her apart.

Lucky her. Improbable success and a well-toned, well-publicized body (one of “The 11 Greatest Bodies on Earth” according to Glamour magazine) assure fame and a cornucopia of commercial opportunities. After all, we live in a society where tens of millions of Americans actively resist the aging process, spending small fortunes on products geared to mask or reverse the inevitable. Torres seems to be winning the battle.

You have to admit, landing lucrative endorsement deals sure beats looking forward to golden years supported by Social Security, even if you’re asked to promote products for bladder control or brittle bones or wrinkle removal.

So, I start training tomorrow, or as soon as I figure out my best sport. Do the modern Olympics award medals yet for adept handling of a TV remote control?