Olympics 2008

Dara Torres won the 50-meter freestyle at Sunday night’s U.S. Olympic swimming trials to claim her second berth for the Beijing Olympics 2008. She set an American record in the event with a time of 24.25. Torres had already won the 100 meter last Friday. She will be the oldest American woman ever to compete at the Olympics and also is the first woman to qualify for five Olympics. I was hoping to go somewhat fast,” Torres said. “They have girls in the world who are going 24.1 and 23.9. I have five more weeks to try to drop a couple of tenths to hope to be in competition with those girls. So I’m very happy with my time and I know I have more work to do.” she was quoted as saying. Everyone expected Vendt to challenge, but he apparently wore himself out by swimming the preliminaries Saturday in 14:50.24—more than 12 seconds faster than anyone else. Instead, it was Vanderkaay who overtook Jensen and held on to win in 14 minutes, 45.54 seconds, just off Jensen’s national mark of 14:45.29.“This wasn’t the event I train for primarily, but I’ll take it,” Vanderkaay said.