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NANCY ARMOUR
Natalie Coughlin Hall

Armour: Older U.S. female athletes still going for gold

Nancy Armour
USA TODAY Sports

USA TODAY Sports counts down the 100 days to the Rio Olympics with daily stories about athletes, teams and coaches preparing for the Summer Games. The opening ceremony is Aug. 5.

LOS ANGELES — Older means wiser. It doesn’t have to mean slower or beatable.

Natalie Coughlin, Kristin Armstrong and several other female Olympians are turning ideas about how long an elite career can last upside down. Taking advantage of improvements in training and nutrition, these women in their 30s and 40s are proving that as long as the mind is willing, the body can follow.

USA cycling athlete Kristin Armstrong poses for a portrait during the 2016 Team USA Media Summit in Los Angeles.

“People ask me about my age all the time. They think, ‘How are you doing this? Physically, can you keep up?’” said Armstrong, who will turn 43 on Aug. 11, a day after she hopes to challenge for her third consecutive Olympic gold medal in the women’s cycling time trial.

“What I’ve learned through this is physically is not my problem. Once what’s between my ears fails, that’s when I know I’m done.

“But it hasn’t failed yet.”

The career of any elite athlete has a limited shelf life, and it’s particularly unforgiving when it comes to female Olympians. In sports like diving and gymnastics, where the litheness and vigor of youth are particularly prized, athletes are at their peak in their late teens.

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There’s a little more longevity in other sports, but we’re talking a few more years, not decades. For every Dara Torres, who was 41 when she won three medals in swimming in Beijing, hundreds of others have hung up their suits and spikes before their 30th birthdays.

But athletes like Coughlin, Armstrong, track cyclist Sarah Hammer, fencer Mariel Zagunis, rower Gevvie Stone and beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh Jennings have found ways to stop the clock. Or at least slow it considerably.

“We’ve come a long way with knowledge. People are training smarter, they’re eating better,” said Walsh Jennings, who could play in her fifth Olympics at 37 after recovering from a serious shoulder injury last year.

“We’re just a different generation of humans.”

Kerri Walsh of the United States spikes the ball against Talita Antunes of Brazil during the final match at Camburi beach during day six of the FIVB Beach Volleyball Vitoria Open in Vitoria, Brazil.

And while these women are in different sports, the same thing keeps them competing.

“It’s knowing what it takes and knowing how to get myself prepared — in not only racing,” said Hammer, recently named to her third Olympic team at 32. “Racing, it’s not the easy part, but it’s the training that gets you to that race, and that’s every single day, getting the most out of yourself.”

That means instead of training longer and harder, they work smarter to limit the wear and tear on their bodies. Stone knows to tailor her workouts to suit how her body is feeling that day. Armstrong focuses more on the quality of her workouts than the quantity.

All say they pay more attention to recovery now than they did when they were younger, with strength training a priority.

Beezie Madden, seeking to become a four-time Olympian in equestrian at 52, spends more time in the gym than she did in years past. In addition to regular massages, Armstrong sees a physical therapist twice a week for what she calls injury prevention.

Coughlin, who is trying to make her fourth Olympics at 33, switched coaches after London in part to help prolong her career. She now trains with the University of California men’s team, which has specific groups for distance, mid-distance and sprinters, like Coughlin.

“We focus a lot on technique, a lot on racing and a lot on recovery — and recovery is the No.1 thing that is making the biggest difference for me as a 33-year-old,” she said. “You don’t need much recovery when you’re 20. You really don’t. It comes naturally.

“When you get a little older, you have to focus more and more — not only the recovery in the pool but the stuff at home: getting massage therapy, going to a physical therapist, taking naps. I hate taking naps more than anything. I’m forcing myself to. All those little things add up.”

But what makes them most formidable is the experience they’ve gained over the years. Whatever precious seconds they’ve lost in physical ability, they make up for in mental strength and savvy.

Armstrong has the equivalent of a Ph.D. in tactics and race strategy after 15 years in elite cycling. With the proliferation of video leaving no secrets in fencing, it is Zagunis’ ability to adapt that has kept her among the world’s best for more than a decade.

For Hammer, it is simply knowing how much pain she’s going to have to endure.

“Endurance is you learn how much you can suffer. It’s a mental game,” said Hammer, a two-time Olympic silver medalist. “My strength is I know what it’s like. I know how hard it is. I know how to train my mind to suffer, and that’s what endurance track cycling is.”

No athlete is immortal. No matter how smart they train, how savvy they are, how meticulously they monitor their diets and sleep, age will catch up to everyone eventually.

“The bottom line is, there’s going to be a day I can’t do this anymore,” Armstrong said.

But that day is not now. Until then, they will continue to push their bodies and the perception of what female athletes can do.

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