Swimmer Dara Torres set for biggest challenge yet

RE: Swimmer Dara Torres set for biggest challenge yet

Former Member — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:27:51 GMT

It's hard for me to believe she could have a chance of pulling this off - age 45 with a rebuilt knee in sprint races where every tiny edge is the difference?

RE: Swimmer Dara Torres set for biggest challenge yet

orca1946 — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:21:38 GMT

If anyone can pull this off, she can !! Good luck to her.

RE: Swimmer Dara Torres set for biggest challenge yet

Former Member — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:40:02 GMT

In 1980 my knee was so bad from a string of injuries I started swimming after being away for a decade (high school). My knee was very unstable so distance freestyle was all I could do. If I wanted to do a 400 IM I trained breaststroke using only a dolphin kick. 5 years later I decided to have an AC reconstruction and a high tibial osteotomy. I had a great result and even did some OW races for a few years before leaving competition behind. Fast forward to a few years ago and I decided to return to competing. This time it was triathlons, in part to a residual shoulder problem (don't we all get one at some point?). Triathlon training allowed me to get very fit without over stressing my shoulder. My point is: never under estimate a person's ability to overcome injuries. However, competing at an Olympic level is a whole different animal.

RE: Swimmer Dara Torres set for biggest challenge yet

Former Member — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:20:26 GMT

So Dara Torres is basically getting a Tibial Tubercle Advancement (TTA) to stabilize here knee? That's interesting: the procedure basically stabilized the knee, decreasing anterior-posterior drawer sign by increasing the lever-arm strength of the patellar tendon, which attatches at the Tibial tubercle. Potentially, the surgeons may be increasing the possible force produced by her quadriceps contraction. In animals the procedure is done to correct the ACL deficient knee, while in humans I understood the surgery was done to correct chronic knee pain and was often used in performance athletes such as sprinters. I thought it was an outdated technique. I guess I was wrong. It would be interesting to see what they insert in the osteotomy site to advance the tibial tubercle: the veterinary surgeon uses a titanium "cage" combined with a titanium tension band plate and forks. From the story it sounds like her surgeon will be relying on a natural bone wedge to create the tibial advancement. Of course this is just a news story, so who knows what the surgeons are really doing. I doubt that she is completely giving up physical training: there is an entire upper half of her body that could be trained without bothering her new surgery.