On Sunday, August 10th, American athlete Dara Torres anchored the US women’s swim team to a silver medal in the 4x100 metres freestyle relay at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In doing so, she cemented her position as the oldest Olympic female swimming medallist in history – a position she already held thanks to her five-medal winning performance at the 2000 Games – and became the oldest swimming medallist of either gender, surpassing Britain’s William Robinson, who won silver in the 200m breaststroke way back in 1908 when he was 38 years of age.

Torres, you see, is 41. You’d never believe it when you saw her picture. Indeed, many of the swimmers who lined up alongside Torres in the relay final weren’t even born when she made her Olympic debut in 1984. This is her fifth Olympic Games. All told, she has won ten Olympic medals.

With her success in Beijing, Torres has helped to redefine our expectations of what the human body is capable of – specifically when it comes to the limitations we assume are imposed by age.

She’s not the first fortysomething to excel in her sport, of course. Other seniors – and that title refers to pretty much anyone over thirty-five in sports that require stamina, speed or hand to eye coordination – have blazed a path before her.

• In 1988, a full decade away from the ring, George Foreman shocked the boxing world by announcing a comeback at the age of 38. Foreman was always a slow, lumbering fighter, and despite being seriously out of shape in his first fight, he gradually worked his way into shape. In 1991, Foreman would go the distance with then undisputed champion Evander Holyfield. In 1993, Foreman had a second title shot at the vacant WBO belt, losing a close contest again in 12 rounds to Tommy Morrison.
• A year later, Foreman fought Michael Moorer, who had beaten Holyfield for the IBF and WBA titles. Most experts gave Foreman no chance at all, and for nine rounds he was comfortably out-classed by Moorer, and found himself well behind on points. Early in the tenth round, a short right caught Moorer on the chin, and he hit the canvass. The referee counted him out, and Foreman was suddenly world champion again. He was 45 years old.
• On February 21, 2003, Michael Jordan became the first 40-year old to score 43 points in an NBA game, which he did in the midst of his second comeback and final season with the Washington Wizards. Jordan would average 20 points per game for the season.
• Perhaps the greatest tennis player, male or female, to ever pick up a racquet, Martin Navratilova won an incredible 18 major singles titles during her career, and 59 grand slam titles overall (including doubles and mixed doubles). Amazingly, she won three of these when she was older than 46 years of age.
• Jack Nicklaus is perhaps the only person with a major haul in sports that rivals Navratilovas. With 17 titles already in the bag, he teed up at the US Masters in 1986 with a chance that was rated by most experts as somewhere between slim and none. At age 46, Nicklaus would go on to win his sixth Masters title, and eighteenth overall.
• Steve Redgrave won gold medals at five consecutive Olympic Games from 1984 to 2000. He was 38 years old when he collected his sixth and last. Aged 40, Jerry Rice posted an impressive 92-catch, 1,211-year season with the Oakland Raiders.
• Triathlete Dave Scott came out of retirement in 1994 at the age of 40 to take second place in the Hawaii Ironman World Championships.
• At the age of 42, ultrarunner Dean Karnazes won the 135-mile Badwater Ultramarathon, considered by many to be the toughest race on Earth. In 2006, he won the 100-mile Vermont Endurance Run, and last year ran fifty marathons in fifty States over fifty consecutive days. He was 45. Indeed, Karnazes only became a serious runner when he was thirty years old.

Naturally – and this is certainly true when it comes to Dara Torres – whenever an older athlete not only exceeds our expectations, but completely obliterates them, the D word begins to rear its ugly head. Despite never failing a drug test, Torres’ unbelievably body and incredible comeback and accomplishments have led some to suspect the 41-year old hasn’t been entirely forthcoming with her supplemental program. In this way she has inherited the mantle of Lance Armstrong, whose record-breaking, post-testicular cancer seven consecutive victories in the Tour de France will forever be viewed with suspicion, despite Armstrong being arguably the most tested athlete in history.

This is one of the great paradoxes of modern sport. Fans demand world records, and networks demand fans. Nobody wants to see an athlete winning the 100-metre dash with a time above ten seconds – the fan doesn’t want it, and the network doesn’t want it. The athletes can’t afford it. Fans also love a comeback story. We’d all like to believe that everything was completely above-board and that winners don’t cheat, but to do this we perhaps have to suspend disbelief, ignore common sense and logic, and look the other way. Or maybe sheer, untouched greatness does exist. I think we’d all like to believe that was true.

What can we learn from all this? Initially, that our preconceived expectations of what the human body is capable of as it ages are changing – in fact, these athletes are forcing us to revise our expectations. It’s certainly true the speed and pace declines for all of us as we get older, but endurance typically does not peak for many individuals until they are into their mid-to-late 30s, or more – it’s worth observing that many leading pros get a second wind, if you will, in the twilight years of their career.

By paying careful attention to our nutritional choices and working out regularly and sensibly – in other words, staying healthy – there is no reason why all of us cannot continue to thrive physically into middle age and beyond. Eat a balanced diet that contains plenty of fruit, vegetables, wholegrains, nuts, legumes, fish and lean meats. Try to workout four or more times per week, making sure you get plenty of rest in between. Sleep. Sleep some more. Become a professional napper. Find your passion. Avoid doing anything to excess – particularly lethargy.

And the oldest athlete to ever win a gold medal at the modern Olympic Games? That would be Oscar Swahn of Sweden, who won gold in the 100 meter team running deer shooting event at the 1912 Games in Stockholm at the age of 64. Swahn, incidentally, is also the oldest person to win any medal in the Olympics, having won silver in the same event eight years later in Antwerp when he was 72. That’s a record that just might stand the test of time.