Michelle De Bruin, the triple Olympic swimming champion, has admitted that she expects to be banned from the sport after allegations that she tampered with a drug-test sample.

"I now believe that I will be banned from competitive swimming for up to four years by FINA when my case comes before its executive committee," she said, after racing to an Irish record in a club meeting in Paris on Saturday.

But de Bruin, who was swimming for her French club MelunDammarie when she won the 800 metres freestyle final in eight minutes 40.01 seconds, knocking 12 seconds off the existing Irish record, said she would fight the allegations.

"Believe me, this will be just the first step in the battle to clear my name. I am innocent and I know that when I eventually get a fair hearing from the International Sports Arbitration panel in Lausanne, I will be totally vindicated." FINA, the sport's world governing body, is investigating allegations that an out-of-competition sample given by de Bruin in January was contaminated with whiskey.

After her race in Paris, de Bruin was ushered away from the poolside by her husband Erik, the man who helped to turn her from an average international swimmer into a world-beater.

"I intend doing everything in my power to prove these allegations are wrong, and I will be able to stand on the starting blocks at the Sydney Olympics, when I intend giving as much hell as has been dished out to me in the past couple of years," de Bruin said.

"I am not a crying, easily distressed little woman. I look people in the eye and I confront problems head on. However, I have to admit that I sat down and cried for two hours in shock when Erik told me last Monday night about the fax from the Irish Amateur Swimming Association.

"Once I got the crying out of my system, I could think about what I was going to do next. There will always be those who think there is no smoke without fire. In this case there is no fire.

"I wouldn't dare suggest there was any kind of conspiracy against me. Nor do I think I am being set up in some mischievous way. However, I do feel that FINA and the International Olympic Committee are being very vocal about my current difficulties so as to lend credibility to their claims that they are doing everything to tackle this problem."

"Michelle swam very well considering everything that has happened in the last few days," Erik De Bruin said on Saturday. "If she is not suspended, she hopes to compete in the French club championships at the end of May."