Michelle Smith may not compete in Euro contest

TRIPLE Olympic swimming champion Michelle Smith may not compete in the European Championships in Spain this August be cause of problems relating to the accreditation of her coach and husband, Eric de Bruin.

Although she has not yet finally decided whether she will participate in Seville, the honorary secretary of the European Federation (LEN), Mr Harm Beyer, has said he will not issue accreditation to Mr de Bruin until an incident at the last European championships in Austria two years ago is "clarified".

Speaking from his home in Hamburg this week, Mr Beyer claimed that any requests for accreditation from Ireland would have to come to him as secretary and that he would have serious problems issuing such accreditation to Mr de Bruin.

Mr Beyer referred to an incident where it is alleged that Mr de Bruin sought and gained accreditation improperly for the European Championships in Vienna in 1995.

"They [the Irish Amateur Swimming Association] can apply for accreditation for Mr de Bruin, but they will get an answer from me that they must first clarify what happened with Mr de Bruin in Vienna in 1995.

"If people violate our rules, the rules that LEN have set, then this cannot be accepted. Mr de Bruin violated our rules. It must be clarified.

"He went to our accreditation centre in Vienna two years ago pretending to be somebody else and pretending to have lost his accreditation. An accreditation was given to him by the officials with his picture on it but with the information for somebody else on the document."

Michelle Smith said yesterday: "It would be a possibility that I wouldn't go, but I'm not thinking about that at the moment. For now I'm still concentrating on training.

"If it was the case that Eric was refused accreditation it would probably cause problems, in that I would want Eric to be there on the pool deck when I'm competing.

"I wouldn't be as confident or as happy competing if he was not on the pool deck as my coach.

"Obviously there has been a misunderstanding. That's what the man [Mr Beyer] is saying."