100 Olympic Athletes To Watch (Summer Olympic Preview)
From Australia to Zimbabwe, China to the U.S., TIME takes you on a world tour to introduce you to the most compelling athletes you’ll be seeing in the Beijing Games…
No.2 Dara Torres
Swimming, United States
Age: 41
I can’t stop staring at Dara Torres’ veins. They’re hard to miss, emerging as they do out of her impressively carved forearms; or the ones streaking across her calves. I’m obsessing over them because — well, because Torres, a nine-time Olympic medalist in swimming, is 41, the mother of a two-year old, and has just qualified for her fifth Olympic Games, something no other swimmer has ever done. Oh, and the time in the 100m freestyle that got her a ticket to Beijing? It was 2.47 seconds faster than her Olympic effort in 1988, at age 21 — a lifetime in such a short race. So I keep flashing to images of body builders and athletes pumped on steroids with veins bulging out their eyeballs and wondering, Does she or doesn’t she?
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