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The aging Olympians have changed not just the face of the team but how the U.S. Olympic Committee does business.

Eight years ago, it began paying athletes directly for living and training expenses (they now can receive up to $36,000 a year), giving them performance bonuses and providing health insurance and tuition assistance. Two years ago, the USOC opened an Athlete Recovery Center at its training center in Colorado Springs.

Unlike 30 years ago, when the end of an athlete’s Olympic pursuits almost always coincided with college-graduation age, today’s Olympians are staying through marriage and, in some cases, through having children. Besides the increased USOC support, athletes now can make money from endorsements and prize money and retain their Olympic eligibility.

Torres is a well-paid motivational speaker outside the pool — she receives an average of $25,000 a speech, according to her agent, Evan Morgenstein — and has lucrative endorsement deals with Speedo and Toyota.

Swimming at the Olympic level at her age, Torres says, is “all about recovery” from training and competition, and she’s able to afford two muscle “stretchers” who travel with her, in addition to frequent sessions with a strength coach, massage therapists and a chiropractor.

“This is our job,” says U.S. superstar Michael Phelps, 23, who will earn a $1 million bonus from sponsor Speedo if he wins at least seven gold medals in Beijing (he plans to swim in eight events). “We can swim as long as we’re swimming well.”

The average age of the U.S. Olympic swim team has risen from 18.4 in 1972 to 22.8 now.

“We’ve always felt that swimming should be more like track and field and that our best performances should be coming in our late 20s and our early 30s,” says Mark Schubert, USA Swimming’s national team coach.

Sponsorship dollars now are pouring into swimming, in part because of the high profile Phelps and others have brought to the sport. Even with the increased experience of the team, youngsters are breaking through: 15-year-old Elizabeth Beisel will swim two events in Beijing.

U.S. swim coaches say they will depend on veterans such as Torres, 25-year-old Natalie Coughlin and 26-year-old Amanda Beard to help calm the nerves of the Olympic newcomers.

The USOC’s Roush welcomes a mix of veterans and young competitors on the Olympic team.

“I certainly don’t want it to become a system where (Olympic veterans) become pipeline-blockers and you lose out on a generation” of athletes who say, ” ‘Hey, I can’t make the team so I’m quitting,’ ” he says.

The International Olympic Committee began to soften its stance on amateurism — which had kept Olympians from profiting from their sports success — in the mid-1970s. But not until the “Dream Team” of NBA players made its debut in the 1992 Games did the IOC embrace pro athletes.

U.S. swimmer Mark Spitz won seven gold medals in the 1972 Olympics under the old amateurism rules. When he decided to cash in on his success after the Games through endorsement deals, he had to give up his Olympic eligibility. If the rules hadn’t changed, Spitz says, Phelps might have done the same thing after winning six gold and two bronze medals in the 2004 Olympics.

Instead, Phelps plans to compete through the 2012 Olympics.

“When Spitz and those guys did it back then, there was no professional swimming. So once you got to a certain point where you had to get a real job, you had to quit,” Phelps says.

Not all Olympians are as richly sponsored as Phelps, who has several endorsement deals besides his Speedo contract, which he signed at 15. Many Olympians are not sponsored.

Callahan has no sponsors and receives money from USA Shooting only for expenses for international competitions. She estimated she has personally invested “thousands of dollars” to stay in a sport in which her best Olympic finish was a 19th place in 2004.

Callahan, who worked 28 years for the Washington, D.C., police department, spends the money and trains up to six hours a day for one reason: “I like to compete.”

Even well-sponsored track and field has its hardship stories.

“Memories of good performances are short-lived in the minds of people who write checks,” pole vaulter Jeff Hartwig, 40, a four-time U.S. outdoor champion, wrote in an e-mailed response to questions. Even after qualifying for Beijing, he wrote, he has no sponsorship offers.

The USOC tries to help such athletes with a program it began in 2000. “In early 2000, we looked at it and realized we had athletes who were bartending … to pay their training bills,” Roush says. “They weren’t able to train at the level they needed.”

Now, depending on their performance, athletes can receive up to $3,000 a month from the USOC. Athletes also get USOC bonuses for top-eight finishes at world championships and for Olympic medals ($10,000 for bronze, $15,000 for silver and $25,000 for gold).