“It’s kind of surreal,” said Gaines, who was on the 1984 United States Olympic team with Torres. He chuckled. “It’s like, how is this old lady doing these times?” he said.

Image Torres, a 41-year-old mother, is in contention for an individual berth in the 100 freestyle. Credit... Jeff Haynes/Reuters

In 1996, Gaines and Torres were at the trials on broadcasting assignments. They worked out side by side in the competition pool between sessions. After watching Torres prevail in a preliminary heat that included two teenagers already on the Olympic team, Katie Hoff and Allison Schmitt, Gaines said, “It definitely brings a lot of memories back.”

With every turn of her head, Torres was triggering her own flashbacks. Before she stepped on the starting block for her morning race, Torres glanced to her left and grinned at Jeannine Dennis, a starter she recognized from her Southern California age-group days. “I just smiled like, here we are again, 24 years later,” Torres said, laughing.

If Torres can make her fifth Olympic team, she will accomplish something that swimmers half her age have not been able to do. She will deflect some of the spotlight from Michael Phelps, who is bidding to eclipse Mark Spitz as the most decorated athlete in an Olympics.

In 2000, Torres came out of retirement to swim on two victorious relays at the Sydney Olympics. At 33, she was the oldest swimming gold medalist for the United States. After that, she married and divorced, met her current partner, David Hoffman, became pregnant, gave birth to her daughter, Tess, now 2, and resumed swimming.

Ask Torres why she has returned to high-level competition, and the simple answer is because she can. Her coach, Lohberg, added: “And let’s not forget this. She’s nuts.”

Torres’s comeback does not seem the least bit crazy when you look at the rapt faces of the mothers and aunts in the Qwest Center audience when Torres is swimming. It is as if they are looking at her and seeing a vision of middle age that society has long been blind to: the matron as a model.