One of my friends beat a couple of his collegiate swimming times at age 46, for instance. He had to train his butt off, but he did it. Swimming has come a long way in recent years and I think it's plausible for Torres to do the same thing given advances in training and technique. From all accounts, she relied more on her talent and competitive nature when she was younger and didn't particularly like to train. Now that she's older, she's wiser and more focused and is training smarter.

Also, don't forget the effect of technology. The Speedo LZR body suits are giving swimmers boosts of a couple percent on their times, which makes a huge difference. Pools are designed differently these days, too, to minimize the effect of waves and backwash from other swimmers. All of these things contribute to the fast times we're seeing in the 2008 Olympics; none of them were around when Torres was young.

As for why more 40-something elite swimmers aren't doing what Torres is, one reason is simply the nature of the sport. Swimming is grueling and most swimmers eventually get burned out, especially if they've swum at high intensity through their teens and twenties. Having a real life interferes with the hours and hours you need to train to keep up your swimming chops. Torres is wealthy and has an entourage to take care of everything for her so she can devote all of her energy towards training.

In women's Master's swimming, the 40-45 year old age group is one of the fastest and most competitive. This isn't the elite level of swimming of the current olympic swimmers, of course; it includes everyone from ex-olympians and NCAA stars to women who began competitive swimming comparatively late in life (fitness swimmers, triathletes, etc.). But it's useful to put Torres into context; she isn't an anomaly so much as the pinnacle of a large group of women. One reason is that women in this age group have more free time than younger women (especially the 30-something cohort) -- their kids are older, their careers are more established. They are rediscovering swimming after getting burned out in their younger years; they have midlife crises and hit the pool. And their physical capabilities haven't waned as much as conventional wisdom would have it. Much of the drop-off in physical condition that we see as adults is because we stop exercising as often and as intensely as we used to mainly because we no longer have the time.

As I've said before, I do tend to think that she's on something based on how she looks, but that's not the whole story here. Her full, voluntary cooperation with the olympic anti-doping squad could be because she's wildly overconfident, but she also could be telling the truth. In any case, if she lacked talent, drive, resources, and mental focus, Torres could juice herself up to her eyeballs and never get off the block. She is beating much younger women, at least some of whom are cheating, and this is what's significant.

who think with their little head, not their big one.

And I'm tired of salacious gossip.

And I'm tired of people reflexively blaming the wife when the husband strays.

Its pretty hard to completely protect yourself from HPV barring total abstinence (no fulling around whatsoever) and having your partner be in the same boat. Not exactly a realistic expectation from anyone, unless you advocate teen marriages.

You hit the nail on the head. Judicial Watch isn't the slightest bit interested in preventing cervical cancer; it's interested in preventing women from having pre-marital sex and in controlling women's freedom to do what they like with their bodies. They are trying to scare parents away from having their daughters vaccinated with Gardasil by hyping its problems, in exactly the same way as the abstinence-only sex ed crowd tries to scare teenagers away from sexual relationships. The two go hand in hand. As far as they're concerned, HPV and cervical cancer are God's punishment to women for having sex.

... leaves me in awe at the achievements of olympic athletes. If I talk about swimming with someone who's competed at the elite level, it's simply because I'm trying to find common ground and make a human connection, not because I think I could have competed at a similar level. Apparently this makes me an armchair loser in Jennifer Sey's eyes, but so be it.

And yes, I am a swimmer, just not a fast one. I loved competetive swimming as a kid, dropped out of the sport in college when I got fried and stopped enjoying it, and resumed swimming in my late 30s. I have been fully aware of my own athletic mediocrity since I first hopped in the pool. If I'm lucky, I come in around the middle of the pack in my races. I've never achieved anything in the way of athletic greatness and never will. And I simply don't give a shit. Swimming makes me happy.

I feel kind of sorry for Sey, whose athletic career has apparently left her with comparative few happy memories but an enormous helping of bitterness.

We must ban it to protect women's mental health!

This very subject came up when we were watching "Dancing with the Stars," of all things, and neither my husband nor I could remember how old Lisa Marie Presley was. But we don't need to remember this kind of trivia because we can Google it on teh Internets.

Now, if only teh Internets could help me remember where I put my car keys ...