Dara Torres to have radical knee surgery this month; out 12-18 months but eyes 2012 Games

Torres needs major knee surgery, out 12-18 months

Dara Torres overcame staggering odds to make the U.S. Olympic swim team in her 40s. Now, an even bigger challenge awaits.

Torres’ arthritic left knee is damaged worse than she thought, requiring a radical, reconstructive procedure that will leave her with a recovery of 12 to 18 months. But she told The Associated Press on Thursday she’s not giving up on the London Games.

“I think this might make me more motivated to go for 2012, just to prove I can get over this,” said the 42-year-old Torres, who won three silver medals at the Beijing Olympics. “At least I can set this as a goal.”

The operation — tibial tubercle osteotomy — will be performed Oct. 20 in Boston. Torres’ shin will be broken and shifted to create more room for cartilage to grow around her kneecap.

She already had the first step in the procedure a couple of weeks ago, when cartilage was removed from a nonweight-bearing area around her anterior cruciate ligament so it can be transplanted to the area around her kneecap during the next operation.

“This is really going be new experience for me,” Torres said. “It’s a little unnerving. I was seriously freaked out when I read the literature.”

Torres, who’s had some two dozen surgeries and twice come back from retirement, became the first U.S. swimmer to compete in five Olympics when she made the team for Beijing — after giving birth to her first child, daughter Tessa.

She became an inspiration to mothers the world over when she anchored two relay teams that won silver medals, and just missed out on the first individual gold of her career, losing to Germany’s Britta Steffen by one-hundredth of a second in the 50-meter freestyle.

Torres underwent shoulder surgery after the games and looked forward to competing fully healthy, only to suffer from increasing pain in her left knee. She made the team for the world championships but was clearly not at full strength. She was unable to do much lower-body training in the months leading to Rome because all the cartilage around her knee had worn out, leaving her with bone rubbing against bone.

At the worlds, Torres failed to get out of the preliminaries for the 50 butterfly and finished last in the final of the 50 free.

“There are times when my knee just swells up like a balloon,” she said. “When I’m going up and down stairs, I have to hold on to the railing. It’s very tough.”

After the surgery, Torres won’t be able to return to her home in Florida for about five days. Then, she’ll be on crutches for six to eight weeks. The first tentative steps in her rehab will be hooked to a special machine that limits the range of motion in her knee.

While she already was looking forward to a break from swimming, she’s concerned that other forms of training — such as biking — will be off limits until her knee gets stronger.

“I don’t know what freaks me out more: having my knee fixed like this or the actual recovery time where I won’t be able to train,” Torres said.

Even if it takes 18 months to recover, Torres could resume her normal routine more than a year ahead of the London Games — enough time to prepare for the Olympics. Of course, she knows the odds of coming back from such a serious operation are much more daunting for someone in her 40s.

Then again, she’s overcome long odds before.

“I’m ready to get it done and move on,” she said. “I just want to have some normality in my life. I want to be able to walk up and down the stairs without being in pain.”