Hope Floats One More Time For Torres

Dara Torres’ message came through loud and clear.

Stanford swim Coach Richard Quick heard her words on his answering machine last summer. More importantly, he heard what she was saying.

I want to swim. I want to swim. I want to swim.

“All she said was, ‘There is something important I want to talk to you about,’ ” Quick said. “I’ve known her a while and she would call six or seven times a year. This was different. I knew what she wanted. I could tell by her voice. She wanted to get back into competitive swimming.”

The question was, Why? At 33, Torres was ancient, by some standards. She didn’t need a cane to get to the starting blocks, but several of her competitors weren’t even born when she swam in her first Olympics in 1984.

She had been out of the pool, competitively, since the 1992 Olympics. And, really, there was little left to prove.

Torres already had two gold medals, a silver and a bronze. She held a world record. She had moved on with her life. She was working in television. She had dabbled in modeling. And who hadn’t seen her in those Tae-Bo infomercials?

Why take those 5 a.m. dips in the pool?

A year--and one national record--later, no one questions Torres. The answers are there.

A national record in the 50-meter freestyle, set last month in Santa Clara. A spot on the Olympic team for the taking. A medal, possibly another gold, on the table.

Good thing Torres took that seven-year sabbatical; otherwise, no one else would stand a chance.

“Of course I’m surprised,” Torres said. “I mean, be realistic, I just want to make a relay team, even if it is as an alternate. That would be great. That was sort of what my goals were when I started.”

And now? That’s a dangling question. A hint, though, could be found Friday at the Janet Evans Invitational. Torres burst through the water, finishing with a personal best in the 100 meters (54.95 seconds).

She bolted from the pool even faster, disgusted.

“I’m very hard to please,” Torres said. “I got out of the pool in a mood. Richard came up to me and said, ‘Jeez, Dara, you just did your best time ever by a half-second.’ I said, ‘OK.’ I guess he was right.”

That was the desire Quick heard on his answering machine.

*

Torres stood on the blocks Saturday evening. Up and down the line were twentysomethings, all in their so-called prime. When the water settled, Torres had set a meet record in the 50 freestyle with a time of 25.04, .31 seconds off her national record. Just goes to show you really can’t trust anyone over 30.

At this point, nothing Torres does is surprising.

She set a meet record in the 100 freestyle on Friday as well. Jenny Thompson, her friend and Stanford club teammate, broke it later that evening and set a national record (54.27). Torres, though, wasn’t exactly left treading water. She finished second in 54.47, another personal best.

This time, instead of storming from the pool, she hugged Thompson.

“It’s nice to have someone swim fast who didn’t take [seven] years off,” Thompson said. “I always know Dara is going to be there pushing me. She’s amazing.”

An understatement at this point.

Torres became the oldest swimmer to break a national record at the Santa Clara Invitational. She had held the 50 freestyle record before . . . in 1983.

It made people wonder what Torres would have done in the last seven years. Torres knows the answer.

“If I had stayed in the sport as long as Jenny has, I don’t know if I would be in the right frame of mind,” Torres said. “I think the fact that I have been out of the sport for seven years has given me a new outlook on it. I have never had [more] fun doing this than I’m having right now.”

Torres has had success before. She has also retired before. She spent two years training with the Mission Viejo Nadadores to prepare for the 1988 Olympics. When it was over, she had a silver medal in the 400 medley relay and a bronze in the 400 freestyle relay. A year later, she quit.

She was burned out. In 1991, she flip-flopped and was burning with desire. She was named co-captain of the women’s swim team.

“People kept asking me if I was going to make a comeback,” Torres said in 1992. “The more they asked, the more I wanted to.”

She helped the 400 freestyle relay team set a world record in Barcelona, Spain, then quit again. This time she seemed to mean it.

Torres made the Tae-Bo promotional video. It took two days and she seemed to be defined by it.

“All I heard was, ‘Hey Tae-Bo Girl,’ ” Torres said, laughing.

She worked for ESPN and ESPN2, Fox Sports and TNT. She also hosted the “Extreme Step” segment on the Discovery Channel’s “The Next Stop.”

Who needed chlorine?

She even posed for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, which was about as close as she got to the water.

“I’ve been asked if maybe ’96 was my year,” Torres said. “There was no way. I even went to watch the Olympics in Atlanta. I didn’t go to swimming. I had no desire to go to swimming. I had no desire to watch swimming. So I was mentally not there to try for 1996. For some reason, everything seems to be falling into to place, and this just seems to be the time for me to do this.”

It didn’t take much of a nudge.

“A friend was egging me on,” Torres said. “I said, ‘You’re nuts, I’m 32. I haven’t swum for seven years. So just drop it.’ And he dropped it. But I couldn’t get the thought out of my head.”

It wasn’t long before she picked up the telephone, then waited . . . and waited . . . and waited.

Quick wasn’t sure she really wanted to force back the clock. After her call last summer, he waited . . . and waited.

A day passed.

Torres: “I literally was waiting by the phone all day.”

Quick: “I didn’t call because I wanted her to make sure this wasn’t a whim.”

Torres: “The next day he called and said, ‘Hey, D.T. Hi. Well, I know why you’re calling.’ I said, ‘No you don’t.’ He said. ‘Yes I do.’ I said, ‘No you don’t.’ He said, ‘You want to make a comeback.’ ”

*

Not one, but two trainers gave Torres a rubdown after the 50 freestyle final Friday. When you’re old, there are more kinks.

“I have had to relearn the sport,” Torres said. “It’s a lot different--nutrition, stroke technique, training. Everything has changed.

“I really came from the days of carbo loading. I do more what’s called the zone, which is adding more protein in your diet and [doing] all the supplements. It’s just very different [from] when I was swimming when I was younger. And you know, I can tell the difference in the way my body is now than when I was younger.”

One thing hadn’t changed. She was still fast.

“During her third day of workouts, my assistant was keeping the times,” Quick said. “I looked at them and yelled, ‘Would you get those right?’ They were too fast. He said, ‘Those are the right times.’ I knew right then we had something pretty special.”

After 19 weeks of training, Torres won the 50 freestyle against a first-rate field, including Amy Van Dyken and Thompson. Torres’ time of 25.65 was the third-fastest in the world in 1999.

She defeated Van Dyken again in the Santa Clara meet last month, breaking her national record in the process. How impressive was it? Van Dyken was wearing the controversial full-body suit, which has improved performances. Torres did not.

As surprised as Quick is about Torres’ redevelopment, he is quick to point out that 30 is not over the hill.

“There is no reason that women can’t compete on this level into their mid- and late 30s,” Quick said. “The most important question is whether they still have that burning desire. Are they willing to do everything possible to be their best?”

And 16 years after her first Olympics, Torres may just be at her best.

“I’m right where I want to be and I’m having a great time,” she said. “This is like those people who take off work for a year and travel. This is sort of like me taking off work for a year and having fun and then going back to work again.

“This is definitely it after this. Yeah, I know, I said this last time. You can believe me this time.”