Is Torres' unprecedented feat too good to be true?

Friday, July 4, 2008



Is Torres' unprecedented feat too good to be true?

---

By Pat Forde
ESPN.com




OMAHA, Neb. -- I want to believe in Supermom.
I want to believe Dara Torres, at age 41, has become a faster swimmer
than she was in her teens, 20s and 30s with no strings attached. I want
to believe she's rocketed out of a six-year retirement, bounced back
from childbirth, overcome two surgeries in the last eight months and
become the best American female sprinter -- again -- through nothing
more than hard work and sensational talent. I want to believe
fortysomethings everywhere have an all-natural inspiration for doing
what they thought they were too old to do.

	Dara Torres, 41, became the first U.S. swimmer to make five Olympic teams with her 100-meter win Friday.

But belief doesn't come easy.
Seeing Torres on the medal stand here at these Olympic swimming trials
with her daughter, Tessa, on her hip? That's a feel-good story. We can
only hope the feel-good story doesn't wind up making us all feel sick
years from now.
Torres has never tested positive for any performance enhancers to my
knowledge. She's requested random blood and urine testing from the U.S.
Anti-Doping Agency and said she wants to be "an open book."
Torres met with USADA CEO Travis T. Tygart last year and, according to
a report from The New York Times, decided to volunteer for a pilot
program under the agency that "tests more broadly" for doping through
blood and urine samples.
"Can USADA give Dara or some other athlete the stamp of cleanliness?"
Tygart asked the newspaper. "No, the science isn't there yet." But he
added, "I think a dirty athlete would be crazy to volunteer for this
program."
According to the report, Tygart has yet to release any of Torres'
results, but she told reporters here at the trials this week that she
has been randomly tested "probably about 12 to 15 times since March."
But locking up a stunning fifth Olympic appearance on the Fourth of
July by winning the 100-meter freestyle makes me wonder whether too
good to be true is the same thing as too good to be clean.
Baseball and other sports have poisoned the well to the point that
Torres' late-career renaissance reminds me of too many fraudulent fairy
tales that have been foisted off on the gullible American public.
We were supposed to believe Roger Clemens was a dominant pitcher in his
40s because he trained harder and smarter than everyone else. We were
supposed to believe Barry Bonds was capable of hitting 73 home runs at
age 37 because he was simply that good and had worked tirelessly to
build his body naturally. We were supposed to believe these miracles of
human preservation, but we've since been given reason to believe they
really were lying cheaters instead.
Torres understands where the doubts come from -- not just the recent
examples in other sports, but also the simple fact that nobody in the
sport's history has been this good at this age. She already was the
oldest U.S. swimming gold medalist in history, and that was eight years
ago. Nothing puts a greater strength-and-aerobic demand on a person
than swimming, which is why it's a young person's sport.
In the face of all this improbability, Torres says the test results
will set her free. She dismisses the doubters who will only multiply
between now and her swims in Beijing.

"Anyone who makes any accusations, I see it as a compliment," she said Friday night.
Torres was subsequently asked by Eric Adelson of ESPN The Magazine
about the asthma medication she takes, which can be of assistance in
helping lung capacity. As long as 10 years ago, there was rampant
speculation that the epidemic of inhalers on pool decks was a sign that
swimmers were using them as performance boosters.
Torres said she was tested by doctors about 18 months ago and diagnosed
as an asthmatic, and that she takes two medicines for it -- one in the
morning and one before she swims.

"You actually have to take breathing tests you can't cheat on" to be diagnosed as an asthmatic, she said.

Torres certainly presents a strong, confident case for herself. But so have others before her.
I remember Marion Jones aggressively attacking those who questioned her
credibility. And I remember Rafael Palmeiro pointing his finger at
Congress and declaring that he was clean. We were supposed to believe
them, too, before Jones went to prison for perjury and Palmeiro tested
positive.
Plenty of predecessors have poisoned the well of blind faith in our
American athletes. That's the tainted legacy of the Steroid Era. That's
why there's a built-in resistance to buying Torres' resurrection on
face value.
She joked to the press Friday night about being too old to read the
scoreboard numbers after she touched the wall in the 100. She said her
body is beaten up, that she'll be sore Saturday morning for the
preliminary heats of her best event, the 50 free.

"I know that really, really, really, really hurt," she said of her 100 swim.
No doubt. It hurt the seven women in their 20s who chased her to the
wall, too. It shouldn't even be possible for a woman in her 40s.
Which is the sticking point. This is all unprecedented -- and after
years of being conned, we've become conditioned to question the
unprecedented.

Who swims this well at that age? After having a child? Nobody. Ever.
Who takes six years off and comes back better than ever, lowering her
best time in the 100 meters from 54.43 seconds in 2000 to 53.78 Friday
night? Nobody. Ever.

Who has shoulder and knee surgery and comes back to whip women half her age less than a year later? Nobody. Ever.
"I want people to know that I am doing this right," Torres said earlier
this week. "That I am 40, 41 years old and I am doing this and I am
clean and I want a clean sport. I swam against swimmers who were dirty
my entire life and it's just something I wouldn't do."

I want to believe Supermom. But she might simply have to take this column as one long compliment.

Pat Forde is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at ESPN4D@aol.com.

Torres’ feel-good story too good?

By Charles Robinson, Yahoo! Sports 11 hours, 34 minutes ago













Torres makes history















More Olympics Videos








YAHOO.Sports.Window.set('sk-right-video', 'uvp-link');



More From Charles Robinson

• American swimmers set sights on record performances Jun 28, 2008
  

OMAHA, Neb. – As Olympic stories go, it is
an exclamation mark on an achievement that will spend the next two
months being bent into a question mark.
Knowing that fact, Dara Torres spent part of Friday night shrugging
off the doubt that is bound to settle on her chiseled shoulders over
the next two months. At 41 years old and having qualified for her fifth
Olympic team, the marble-physiqued Torres now owns potentially the most
intriguing feel-good story line this side of Michael Phelps.
And with it, she also has materialized as the Olympian most likely
to bear the brunt of suspicious success in the post-BALCO era.
At 41, she has done what most would have termed impossible since
retiring (for the second time, no less) after the 2000 games: bear a
child, get diagnosed with asthma, go through recent knee and shoulder
surgeries, and arrive at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials posting
faster times than in her mid-20s. Yet, when she touched a wall in the
100-meter freestyle Friday night, she squinted at digits that seemed
downright impossible. Torres qualified for the Olympic team by edging
out a 25-year-old Natalie Coughlin by five one hundredths of a second –
53.78 to 53.83 – in an event in which Coughlin holds the American
record.
In an instant, we were given the light and dark side of an Olympic
moon – with Torres becoming the symbol of warring beliefs. On one hand
you had a baby-toting mother overcoming the longest of odds, providing
a rallying cry for the middle aged and giving a booster shot to the
ageless spirit of competition. On the other, you had the sinister
raised eyebrow of unproven doping assumptions.





It’s a case study in “Can you believe she did that!” versus “Can you believe she did that?”
“I’m so used to it now that it’s not even an issue,” Torres said of
the doping suspicions that have dogged her in this latest Olympic
comeback. “I just got drug tested and I can’t see them not coming out
and at least blood testing me with that pilot program I’m involved
with. That’s fine. Like I said (before), anyone who makes any
accusations I take as a compliment. “
Certainly the suspicions will come, even with Torres taking part in
a special U.S. Anti-Doping Agency program called Project Believe.
Framed as USADA’s most vigorous testing regimen, Torres says her
involvement has led to her blood and urine having been tested “12 to 15
times” since March.
But that’s a price she says she’s willing to pay as part of what she
calls her “open book” policy with testing. A policy that has had her
going on the offensive against any doping insinuations since her first
statements at these trials.
“You can DNA test me, blood test me, urine test me, whatever you
want to do,” Torres said in her first statements after arriving in
Omaha. “Just test me because I want people to know that I am doing this
right, that I’m 40, 41 years old and I’m doing this and I’m clean and I
want a clean sport. I swam against swimmers who were dirty my entire
life and it’s just something I wouldn’t do.”
Unfortunately for Torres, she’s carving out new territory in
unforgiving terrain. Not only is she struggling against an abyss of
cynicism created by a federal BALCO doping investigation (which
implicated several Olympic athletes), her win comes off some strong
remarks from Olympic gold medalist Gary Hall Jr. Hall expressed disgust
with USADA earlier this week, suggesting that it is federal
investigations – not Olympic drug testing – that are catching
unscrupulous cheats.
“To think that it doesn’t exist is foolish,” Hall said. “All doping
scandals are not a direct result of positive tests. They’re usually
somebody getting caught by some other means. I don’t think that we can
rely on a doping agency to really catch the people that are so far
ahead of where the testing is.”
It’s that kind of thinking, combined with the onslaught of broken
world records and influx of money in the swimming community, that is
helping to breed questions about doping in the sport. And that
sharpening microscope comes at a time when Torres has just achieved one
of the most unlikely feats. She has a fierce and dedicated fan base
rallied behind her, a battery of clean drug tests and a coach who has
bitter memories of past doping scandals.
“My wife swam against the East Germans,” said Torres’ coach, Michael
Lohberg. “She swam on the West German national team, and we knew (about
doping) all the time. She lost a lot of medals and those kinds of
things.”
But as the oldest female swimming qualifier in Olympic history – and
in a sport that has found its lifeblood in youth – Torres will be
freestyling to Beijing with critics sitting on her back. She is hurt by
the fact that there is almost zero precedent for athletes dramatically
improving their swimming times in their 30s, let alone at 41. Not to
mention an athlete that has had three knee surgeries and a rotator cuff
repaired. Then there is an army of bloggers close to the swimming
community laying out intricate cases suggesting that Torres must be
doping.
And what about her ardent denials and “open book” testing policies?
Skeptics will point to the fact that many other athletes put up similar
fronts – Marion Jones, for one – and are now in prison or banned from
competition for life for their roles in doping scandals. Even Torres
can’t deny this.
“Unfortunately, there have been athletes in the past who’ve sat
there and looked everyone in the eyes and said, ‘I have not taken
drugs,’ and now they’re either in jail or being indicted,” Torres said.
“You are now guilty until proven innocent.”
For a segment of swimming critics, this is a reality Torres can’t
escape. So she moves on to Beijing hoisting a story that seems almost
too good to be true. And that might be the only thing her supporters
and skeptics agree upon.