Age doesn’t matter to U.S. team

Libby Callahan is a retiree and a great aunt 15 times over, with No. 16 on the way. She spends her time walking her dogs, gardening and baking.

And training for the Olympics.

Callahan will compete in pistol shooting at the Beijing Games, which begin Aug. 8. At 56, she’s the oldest female U.S. Olympian ever. “I consider it a non-factor in what I have to do,” Callahan, a four-time Olympian, says of her age.

Yet even she was impressed by 41-year-old Dara Torres’ victories at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials, which put Torres on the 2008 team and age-defying Olympic feats such as Callahan’s on the national radar.

When Torres squinted to read the scoreboard after her trials races, she heralded a trend that’s taken hold on U.S. Olympic teams in the last decade: America’s Olympians are significantly older than a generation ago, thanks to changes in the Games’ rules that allow athletes to be paid for their successes and advances in training and recovery programs.

“Age,” Torres says, “is just a number.”

The average age of the U.S. Summer Olympic team rose to 27 in 1996 from 24 in 1976 and has remained steady. This year’s team – even with a series of upsets during the Olympic trials that kept several older athletes from getting to Beijing – has an average age of 26.8.

The roster includes three five-time Olympians (Torres is one) and 12 four-time Olympians. Twenty are mothers. At least one – 58-year-old sailor John Dane III, who after 40 years of trying will be at his first Games as the oldest Team USA member and the oldest U.S. Olympian in more than 50 years – is a grandfather.

“This just says, ‘Hey, go for it,’ ” says U.S. modern pentathlete Sheila Taormina, 39. “Don’t back off because it hasn’t been done.”

Taormina will be the first woman to compete at the Olympics in three different sports. Achieving that drove her to stay in Olympic sports after swimming at the 1996 Olympics, where she won a gold medal in the 4x200-meter freestyle relay, and competing at the 2000 and 2004 Games in the triathlon.

“I’ve always tried to break paradigms out there,” Taormina says, “to just get people to think a little differently.”

The other U.S. female pentathlete in Beijing will be 16-year-old Margaux Isaksen. Taormina jokes that “she’s in puberty, and I’m in menopause.” Isaksen says Taormina is “motherly,” asking whether she’s remembered her swimsuit or other things she needs when they’re competing in the pentathlon, which includes shooting, fencing, equestrian, running and swimming.

Like Torres, 21 of the U.S. Olympians headed to Beijing are 40 or older. Taormina and Torres – who will race in the 50-meter freestyle – may stand out for their success in sports that are particularly demanding on the body, but in Olympic sports such as shooting, sailing and others, experienced competitors often are well-suited for the precision and skills necessary for success.

“It’s exciting because you’re looking for relevance in younger kids, but now all of a sudden you have the 40-somethings saying, ‘Hey, one of our own is on the team,’ ” said Steve Roush, U.S. Olympic Committee chief of sport performance.

The Olympians’ advanced age also has caught the attention of Team USA’s most prominent fan.

“There’s a 58-year-old sailor,” President Bush said at a White House send-off Monday for the 2008 Olympic and Paralympic teams, “which gives this 62-year-old mountain biker hope that you may need me in Beijing.”

Torres is a well-paid motivational speaker outside the pool - she receives an average of $25,000 per speech, according to her agent, Evan Morgenstein - and has lucrative endorsement deals with Speedo and Toyota.

Swimming at the Olympic level at her age, she says, is “all about recovery” from training and competition, and she’s able to afford two muscle “stretchers” who travel with her, in addition to frequent sessions with a strength coach, massage therapists and a chiropractor.