Dara Torres made a masters splash in Beijing: three medals in the pool.

As predicted here two months ago, Olympic swim star Dara Torres is Masters Athlete magazine’s Masters Athlete of the Year. Editor Sean Callahan wrote: “Torres . . . gave Masters athletes something special to think about as they get older. Her performance has been credited with creating a surge in attendance of Masters swimmers in the vicinity of Coral Springs, Fla., where Torres did some training. This award is our way of thanking her for showing a host of Masters athletes and potential Masters athletes what’s possible at 41 and beyond.” No argument here. Dara is a wonderful cover girl for masters sports. Track wasn’t ignored this year, though. The magazine gave age-group honors to W50-59 runner Kathy Martin, W60-69 sprinter/jumper Shirley Harper, W80-plus sprinter Marjorie Fitzgerald and M80-plus recordman Orville Rogers, 91. But a strong dissent on the magazine’s awards process has been issued by another M90 track star: Bob Matteson of Vermont.

In this letter to supporters, Bob noted that he won 50 percent of the vote in online balloting, and No. 2 got only 41 percent.
But Bob writes:

The selection system turns out to be not just by democratic voting. . . . Masters Athlete editors and writers decide, empowered to override the vote — which is what they did in my case! . . . I think this arrangement . . . is unfortunate.

Bob thinks he deserved the M80-plus award because he claims to have set six world single-age records this year at age 92, including the 100-meter best for age 92 last month.
Here’s how his local paper, the Bennington Banner, reported the mark on Dec. 1:

Matteson completes track record sweep
By Adam White, Sports Editor
BURLINGTON — Senior track master Bob Matteson shattered the existing age-92 world record in the 100-meter dash on Friday to complete an unprecedented six-event sweep and cement his place in the sport’s history.
Matteson’s time of 20.05 seconds in a 100-meter race against Hamilton Davis at Burlington High School broke the existing mark of 20.67 set by Jing-chan Wang of Taiwan in 1987. Matteson now holds the age-92 world records in the 100M, 200M, 400M, 800M, one-mile and two-mile events, a single-age sweep that has never been accomplished by any runner of any age in the history of the sport.
“I’ve had this goal for quite a while,” said Matteson, who set the other five records during the summer but had the 100M mark elude him five times – including by fractions of a second on three separate occasions. “To tell you the truth, it was kind of disorienting — I woke up this morning and thought, ‘well, what do I do next?’ because I’ve been chasing this one for some time.”
Matteson’s quest for the sprint mark required him to stretch his outdoor season well into autumn, and Friday saw him cut through near-freezing temperatures to finally complete the sweep. The match race was supervised by former University of Vermont track coach Bill Nedde, and a trio of timers submitted results that averaged out to just over a half-second faster than Wang’s 21-year-old mark.
With three generations of descendants cheering him on, Matteson leapt out to an early lead on Davis thanks to a strong start. He credited recent workouts with Mount Anthony Union High School and Williams College coach Kathleen Newton as having helped to solidify his fundamentals of form, including firm foot placement at the start, rhythmic motion with his arms and a more upright head position during the race.
“I owe a lot of thanks to [Newton] for all the help she has given me,” Matteson said. “I’m certain that I picked up some time in the start, and I that most definitely made a difference.”
Matteson also expressed gratitude for Williams head cross-country coach Pete Farwell, who has served as longtime trainer to the aptly-nicknamed “geezer gazelle” and supervised his penultimate attempt to break the 100M mark earlier in November.
With the historic sweep now accomplished, Matteson said that he will take “a prolonged breather” from the sport.
While he has traditionally competed in indoor track events during the winter months, he said that he expects to take a hiatus from the sport until the spring and may even retire altogether from competition outside of community events like the Steve Zemianek/Bennington Road Race.
“One reason I wanted to get [the record sweep] this fall is that the passage of time really does slow you down,” Matteson said. “I’ll stay active, but I must admit that retirement is something I’m thinking somewhat favorably about.”
When it was pointed out to him that there are certainly another set of age-93 records that could be broken next season, Matteson smiled.
“I’m sure there are, and I’m sure they’re slower,” Matteson said. “But I really haven’t looked at them. “Not yet, anyway.”

Of course, Bob’s sweep is pretty unofficial, since the single-age record compilation he cites — Pete Mundle’s Masters Age Records — is rife with errors and omissions.
For the true record, the M90 age-group world record is 17.53 by Brazil’s Frederico Fischer in 2007, and the American M90 record is 17.83 by Donald Pellmann in 2005.
But I don’t agree that a public vote, a la “American Idol,” should decide age-group honorees for Masters Athlete’s set of awards. It’s too easy to conduct an email campaign that stuffs the online ballot box.
Orville was a completely plausible pick for the M80-plus award.
Congrats to Dara and all the age-group stars.