Golden girl Dara defying the odds

Forget Michael Phelps and his eight golds; the story of Dara Torres, the old lady of the pool who keeps splashing back after retirement, is the one which has most wooed the US media here in Beijing because in this Games of the venerable Olympian, it seems so astounding yet inspiring to a generation of middle-aged American parents.

What's more, the tale also contains an element of mystery. How, many ask as they gaze on the glamorous front cover photos of a woman with the lithe, muscular body of someone half her age, can this mother of a two-year-old girl seemingly be getting fitter and faster?

Torres knows there will be those wondering whether she is beating not just the clock but the drug testers too. Which is why she has decided to do everything humanly possible to prove she's clean. "I knew I was going to be under a lot of scrutiny because I'm 40 and I'm doing this because who was going to believe me if I'm just getting a urine test?" she said, after her victory in the 50 metres and 100m freestyle events at the US trials amazed a nation.

So Torres, who ' ll be competing in the short sprint and two relays here, contacted the US anti-doping agency, who have made her one of the guinea pigs in a special pilot project where athletes are tested and examined more regularly and rigorously than ever before.

"I've gone beyond the call of duty to prove I'm clean but you are guilty until proven innocent in this day and age, so what else can I do? It's a real bummer," says the woman who swears the only drugs she's ever taken have been to combat her asthma.

Yet she need not worry; America much prefers a fairytale and couldn't help laughing with her when Torres looked up at the clock after breaking the national 50m record at the trials and thought: "It's all blurry. Hey, they need to make those numbers a little bigger for people my age."

The longevity of Torres's career is symbolic of how great athletes are becoming adept at self-preservation. Like Australian rower James Tomkins, who'll be after gold medal number four at 42, and Jeannie Longo, the French cycling great who'll be at her seventh Games here.

As for Torres, she became the oldest American swimmer ever to qualify for an Olympics and the first from her country, like Mark Foster for Britain, to reach a fifth Games. Her US record in the short sprint had come 26 years after she'd first broken the record aged 15 and 24 years since she'd won the first of her nine Olympic medals in 1984.

In between had come two retirements - she won fivemedals in Sydney in 2000 after seven years out of the sport - a spell as a TV commentator and the birth of her daughter Kelly but each time the siren call of the pool hypnotised her. Just to add to the emotion of her latest comeback, she has been prone to tears too, worrying about her coach Michael Lohberg back home who has been diagnosed with a potentially fatal blood disorder.

When Torres arrived for training here the other day, she discovered the famed Beijing smog blanket even hung inside the Water Cube venue. Not what an asthmatic needs to see. Yet she's battling on for more than just herself now.

"I have so many middle-aged women who look up to me. I want them to feel proud and feel like they can do what they set out to do," she said.