When forty-one-year-old American swimmer Dara Torres,mother of a two-year-old,competed in the 2008 Bijing Olympics,people were surprised.They did not disapprove.They just thought that it would be difficult foran older athlete and a new mother to compete against younger athletes.Why,then,did people disapprove when runner Fanny Blankers-Koen,a thirty-year-old Dutch mother with two young children,competed in the Olypics? The year was 1948,and thing were very different for women at that time.