Solicitors acting for Michelle De Bruin, the triple Olympic swimming champion, are to hold a press conference in Dublin today about a drug test taken by the swimmer.
The test is believed to have been conducted in Ireland last January while the World Swimming Championships were in progress in Perth, Australia. The test was conducted by International Drug Tests and Management, the Swedish firm contracted to perform tests on behalf of the world swimming body, FINA.
It is believed that a letter was sent from the FINA offices in Lausanne to the Irish Amateur Swimming Association last week and that the swimmer was told of the contents over the weekend.
A spokesperson for Lennon, Heather and Co, the swimmers solicitors, said last night that tests on the swimmer had given rise to some confusion and that there was a "difference of opinion" between his office and FINA on them.
Mr Peter Lennon, the Dublin-based solicitor who represents the couple, said last night that De Bruin "had not failed a drugs test within the meaning of the rules. Have you ever known an athlete to be suspended for taking a drug that is not itemised or particularised? Have you ever known an athlete to be suspended for interfering with a sample as alleged here."
Since winning three gold medals in the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, De Bruin has been the subject of controversy concerning drug use. The career of her trainer and husband, Erik, ended in 1993 when he failed a drug test at an athletics meeting in Germany.
If Smith is found to have submitted a positive, manipulated or tampered-with test she could incur a ban of up to four years which would effectively end her career. She could also forfeit any medals won in the 12 months before the drug test took place. De Bruin won two gold medals at the European championships in Seville late last summer.
Michelle De Bruin has consistently rejected the allegations of drug taking which have dogged her since she posted a series of rapid improvements in her personal best times from January 1993 onwards.
Speaking in the spring of 1995 about the rumours circulating in Irish swimming she told the Sunday Tribune:
"You can't go around explaining everything to every single person that you meet . . . I did find it offensive the first time I heard it and thought this is a load of rubbish. Now I think, why should I really care. I know what I am doing. I know how I am training. I know how I am eating."
The following summer she stunned the swimming world by winning three gold medals at the Atlanta Olympics, having never come higher than 17th in two previous Olympiads.
"Everybody who comes to the Olympic Games trains hard but I also like to think that I train smart," she told journalists at a series of fraught press conferences which became one of the defining events of the 1996 Olympics.
Her troubles didn't end when the games concluded, however. Last spring De Bruin was warned by the governing body of FINA for being unavailable for the random tests for which swimmers must always be available.
In February of 1997 De Bruin announced that she intended to sue a range of publications whom she considered to have damaged her reputation in dealing with the issue.