amazing women olympic highlights － day 2.

I've been trying to come up with a cleverly abbre-viated name for the women compe-ting at the Olympics, but can't quite seem to get the right feel . . . wom-lypians? she-lympians? Gals of the Games? GG4G (Girls Going for the Gold)? Hmph. Let me know should you come up with a workable suggestion of your own － I'm open!!

Meanwhile, back to Beijing . . .

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It's been almost a quarter-century since Dara Torres first dived into an Olympic pool for a freestyle relay － but Sunday morning, the 41-year-old mom's anchor leg helped win the U.S. a silver medal, just behind the Netherlands and just before the Australians.

With this win, Los Angeles native Torres:

• has won ten Olympic medals;
  
• is the first American swimmer to compete in five Olympics; and
  
• is the oldest swimming medalist of either gender － breaking the century-old standard of Britain's William Robinson, who at 38 earned the silver in the 200 breaststroke in the 1908 Games.

Of course, it took a team to gain Torres' glory － kudos, too, to Natalie Coughlin of Vallejo, CA, Kara Lynn Joyce of Ann Arbor, MI, and Lacey Nymeyer of Tucson, AZ.

Quoth Torres: "The water doesn't know what age we are."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Australian Stephanie Rice broke the world record Sunday in swimming's 400-meter Individual Medley, winning the Down Under's first gold of the Games and 400th summer Olympic medal. Rice's time of 4:29:45 and silver medalist Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe's 4:29:89 time both beat the former world record of 4:31:12, set by bronze medalist Katie Hoff at the U.S. Olympic trials just two months ago.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I hadn't realized, and therefore, neglected to mention yesterday, that the first gold medal for the Chinese was also won by a woman during Saturday's Day One Games. Chen Xiexia [pictured above] set two Olympic records as she won the gold in the women's 48-kilogram (not quite 106 lbs.) weight category.

The 25-year-old was the only athlete to successfully complete all of her six lifts in the competition, and dominated in both the snatch (in which the weight bar is raised above the head in one continuous motion) and the clean and jerk (a two-step lift in which the bar is held at shoulder level, then pushed overhead). World champion Chen lifted 209.5 pounds in the snatch and 258 pounds in the clean and jerk, an Olympic record. Her total score of 467 pounds was also an Olympic high score, besting the prior record by 4.4 pounds.