An easy target

Al And Kay Guy, the two Irish testers who arrived at the home of Michelle de Bruin to take a urine sample in January, might wonder how they came to be demonised with such little fuss, public outcry or Sunday paper editorials. Some of those who purport to defend de Bruin on the basis that nothing has been proven seem to have less scruples for burdens of proof when it comes to the Guys.

An easy target, the Guys. Painted as inscrutable testers who arrive at athletes' houses early in the morning to force them to pee into jars against their will, the Guys are not glamorous, their job is difficult and to a wider public embarrassing. The Guys were never on a podium at an Olympic games receiving medals in the name of Ireland and Irish sport, they were never feted by anyone of significance.

No, the Guys are ordinary people who live in Dublin and who have been listening to their name being blackened in the biggest alleged conspiracy ever to have gripped international sport. The Guys have been named on television, on radio and in the print media as two people not to trust, as two people capable of deceit. It has been inferred on numerous occasions that they are unfit to do their job and that even the governing body of swimming, FINA, had lost confidence in them, refusing to accept their report of events in Kilkenny that morning. The guilt or innocence of de Bruin aside, it is interesting to observe how some parties enthusiastically engage in the destruction of the good name of a man and wife through innuendo and inference in order to retrieve the reputation of an Olympic swimmer. Victimisation ? Michelle de Bruin or Al and Kay Guy?