Let's hope Dara Torres' story isn't too good to be true

STANFORD — Very few sports stories right now need to be more free from sin than Dara Torres’.

We are so ready for integrity, never more available to trust, wanting more than ever to believe that what we have seen from Torres did not come from a vial, needle, pill, cream, drink, ointment or a smarmy Victor Conte handshake.

In fact, we are desperate for it since Barry Bonds, Marion Jones, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro and countless others have worn out our gee-whiz — that child-like ability to react to athletic performance with wonderment, not suspicion.

“I need for people to believe I am clean,” Torres said Saturday from the U.S. Olympic swimming training center.

She said it with such sincerity that it seemed almost sad to think she should wear a sign around her neck: “I only have spring water going through this body.”

But when it comes to trusting athletes again, Torres has all the makings of being absolutely the best place to start.

Torres is the middle-aged mother of a 2-year old. Can there ever be a more neutral, innocent, trusting and user-friendly image than a 41-year old doting mom? This would be like asking to trust Mrs. Fields, if Mrs. Fields could swim the 50 free in 24.25 seconds.

Who is ripped like Mt. Rushmore.

“I know she is very muscular,” said Jessica Hardy, the former Cal star who will swim the 100 breast stroke in Beijing. “Maybe that’s how it got started.”

Female swimmers don’t look like they could arm-wrestle Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Female swimmers don’t take off six years from the sport and swim better than ever. They don’t have shoulder and knee surgery at 40, then come back a year later to set the American record in the 50 free. They don’t swim at the Olympic level older than 30, certainly not 40. At 41 they don’t shave 1.34 seconds off their best 50 freestyle time when their previous best was set in 1988 as a 21-year old.

Put it another way: Ask any 41-year woman you know if she feels she’s in the best shape of her life after having a baby at 39 and two surgeries a year later. Oh, and one other thing.

“Dara is in the best shape of any swimmer on our team,” Hardy said.

Wonder Mom makes a soccer mom who juggles four kids and five schedules look like a dope smoker in comparison. The timing has never been more appropriate than right now for Wonder Mom. Smart, personable, Torres could be the antidote to skepticism, cynicism and blatant snickering.

If we let her.

Oh, if we could let the following little story ride along merrily on its own silly merits.

Allison Schmitt, 17 and a 200 freestyler, took a can of Play-Doh, rolled it into the shape of the five Olympic rings and stuck it to Torres’ leg. Big grins from Torres over that.

Oh, if we could let the following little story stand as a significant shaper of Torres’ character.

“She is so cool,” said Chloe Sutton, 16, a 10K and open-water swimmer. “She doesn’t act like a mom at all. She doesn’t act like my mom. She doesn’t act as old as she is.”

Yes, in the feel-good story that Torres should be, she dares anyone to chip away at her core.

“They can test me anywhere at anytime,” Torres said.

That’s what baseball’s Sammy Sosa said a few years back.

When someone called him on it, Sosa not only refused, he refused with an attitude.

“People have asked me, ‘Don’t you get tired of people referring to your age all the time?’” Torres said.

“Nope. Not me. I’m proud of it.”

That’s what Bonds said after he hit 26 homers in 2006 at the age of 41.

“I take my asthma medicine not to have an advantage but to have the same breathing capacity as my competitors,” Torres said.

That’s what McGwire said about androstenedione, taking it just so he could stay in the lineup to hit a baseball like anyone else.

“I have made myself an open book,” Torres said.

That’s what we thought Palmeiro was doing when he testified in front of a congressional committee.

“You are guilty until proven innocent,” Torres said.

Torres has picked a lousy time to be an inspiration. Of course, she has done something none of those baseball players have. She volunteered for a USADA pilot program unprecedented in its scope and thoroughness. With her permission, USADA will store for as long as it wants her blood and urine samples. As testing becomes more sophisticated, USADA can run her through the system from here to infinity.

“Why would I do that if I have something to hide?” Torres said.

Why indeed. It’s either a laudable act of complete disclosure by a person of high integrity or the arrogant thumbing of a nose at a system by someone who thinks she is too smart to get caught. Only a fool would claim to know which is true.

I tilt toward integrity if for only one reason: It’s so tedious always going in the other direction. It’s not like Torres was a stiff who suddenly became a dolphin.

Now headed to her fifth Olympics, she was the first American to swim in four. At 33, she was the oldest gold medalist in U.S. Olympic swimming history.

She has won nine Olympic medals. Her sweet times never were a shock. Torres, after all, was an Olympian at 17.

“I have raced against dirty athletes all my life,” Torres said.

One of them was Ireland’s Michele Smith, who won three gold medals in Atlanta in 1996 but later was kicked out of the sport for four years for tampering with a urine sample.

“Smith was pretty obvious,” Torres said. “How can your times drop so much in a short period of time (without chemical help)?”

Torres was asked if she followed Bonds’ home-run chase of Hank Aaron in 2007.

“I didn’t follow it at all,” Torres said.

“There was just too much evidence out there (about Bonds being dirty). I became disinterested.”

That’s the kind of answer you’d expect from someone who professes to be clean.

Now all we have to do is wait about 10 years, I’m guessing, before we know for sure that her indignation toward Bonds was real.

She will have stood the test of time, drug testing to be exact, and so she’ll be remembered as Dara Torres, Olympic legend, not Olympic disgrace.

Yep, 10 years ought to do it, when we’ll know Dara Torres was telling the truth.

When we started to get our gee-whiz back. However delayed.

You can reach Staff Columnist Bob Padecky at 521-5490 or at bob.padecky@

pressdemocrat.com.