The power of gold ensures Mrs Smith gets her wish for a street improvement

AT the reception in the GPO yesterday, Mrs Pat Smith was delighted. "For 14 years I'd been trying to get them to paint that pole," she explained, "and now it's done." The electricity pole outside the Smith home in Rathcoole, Co. Dublin, had been in need of attention for some time.

Now it's coloured gold. The ESB put on the undercoat and neighbours did the rest. For a moment yesterday morning it seemed this "painting of the pole at long last" meant more to Mrs Smith than seeing her daughter win four Olympic medals. It certainly seemed that Michelle's achievement in getting the ESB to move on the pole was at least equal to an Olympic gold.

The family has been inundated with camera crews and media from "Nigeria, Holland, England, everywhere, and Cork", said her daughter, Aisling, "it's brilliant". Aisling had "an absolutely brilliant time" in Atlanta too.

All that celebrating, so little sleep, all those Irish pubs. Not a single American had been nasty to them. "They just didn't know where Janet Evans was coming from," she said. And there was President Clinton. He asked Michelle could he have the Irish pin she was wearing. She gave it him and she is sending him on an Irish T-shirt. He asked for that too.

Mrs Smith was not at all put out the remarks of some commentators concerning Michelle's achievements in the pool. "They just want to be controversial," she said, "we'll have a party with or without them." But her husband, Brian, was upset at the comments, she said. Brian junior was sipping a Coke. He will be drinking lots of coke from now on. He has a good excuse. Coke's home is in Atlanta, where he had a great time too.

"Everyone knows Brian now," remarked Mrs Smith, by then admiring the Waterford crystal piece presented to Michelle by the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Mr Brendan Lynch. It features the five Olympic rings, surmounted by a swimmer ploughing through waters.

Meanwhile, Michelle's husband, Erik de Bruin, was intently watching a video replay of Michelle's 490 metre race. It was his first time to see it since the actual event. There were no reruns of it on American television, "and we were too busy", he said. He studied it right to the end, as though alone in all the world with that TV screen.

Each athlete was presented with a Waterford crystal medallion to mark their participation in the Olympics. But the happiest man there, and one of the most popular, was boxer, Francis Barrett. Everyone wanted to shake his hand, talk to him, and get his autograph. He smiled and smiled and smiled. He posed for photographs, signed Tshirts, everything, and accepted the congratulations of all.

Michelle, meanwhile, was doing interviews for assorted broadcasting media in at least two languages. Then it was time for the athletes to go to lunch. As they left, the athletes were given a round of applause by GPO staff lining the corridors.