In the end it was a pitiful, unheroic tale, full of losers and bereft of winners. For the guts of five years, we have watched as the Michelle de Bruin story evolved from whispers within the swimming community through a full-scale national argument to yesterday's final act.
The words from the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne which completed Michelle de Bruin's slow-burn disgrace gave scant regard to the national drama which she has provoked on this island. From those who coldly examined the facts there was no bitter polarisation, no emotional accusations. Just a clear verdict.
In the aftermath, there is a temptation to worry whether other people will now generalise about Irish sport. Yesterday stopped Ireland generalising about its own sport. We are no cleaner or dirtier than anyone else, our innocence has been stolen. The short statement from the three judges who listened to two long days of evidence and dispute back in early May could hardly have been more damning. De Bruin had failed to prove that the samples were not hers or that a third party manipulated the samples. Allied to the disclosure during the hearing that the swimmer had been using the banned drug androstenodione, de Bruin's reputation is left in shreds.
The CAS left in place the four-year ban imposed by FINA, an extraordinarily harsh sanction in these times, but one which was preserved because tampering is not, as is often thought, less serious than a doping offence, rather it is an attack on the very integrity of the system. The upholding of the ban was a pointed statement on the seriousness of the offences committed by de Bruin.
The hearing in Lausanne had been an incredible summation of the facts of the case. Yves Fortier (Canada), Denis Oswald (Switzerland), and Michael Beloff (Britain) - de Bruin's own nominee - heard how the swimmer had been absent from sight for at least four to six minutes on the morning of the test, when and how the testers had first smelled whiskey, how one of the tester's view of de Bruin's genitalia had been obstructed during the giving of urine, how the testers had never once found her at the location where she said she would be training but had allowed her generous latitude, how the laboratory had found traces of the steroid androstenodione, how a forensics laboratory could find no signs of tampering on the canisters.
Listening to the parade of evidence, it seemed a small miracle that the de Bruin case had even staggered on this far. Yesterday's outcome was inevitable. From swimming people, the response to news of the ban was unanimous and welcoming.
"Obviously they have found that FINA has fulfilled the burden of proof. We have no possibility of looking at the results from Atlanta. I don't think the samples from the last Olympics are left anywhere. We have no means or reason to look at that, but we are pleased with this result," said Gunnar Werner of FINA. "Under present rules we can't look at 1996 again, but in reality those results are always going to be questionable. To some of us they were always questionable," said John Leonard of the World Swim Coaches' Association.
That is the stark bottom line. Despite the personal sadness for de Bruin, the sport from which she sprang has welcomed her disappearance. They must now get back to the thankless task of trying to repair the damage done by the de Bruins and others.
And of Michelle and Erik? The abiding memory will be of a press conference in the offices of Lennon Heather Solicitors on City Quay in Dublin, a press conference called in April 1998 to refute the charges which FINA had made against the swimmer the previous day.
Michelle de Bruin sat beside her husband and read a lengthy statement full of resounding denial. Somewhere amongst the brazen declaratives was a reference to an unnamed testosterone precursor. Until the CAS hearing in Lausanne last month that was the sole reference to the banned drug which was made in the course of the case. The de Bruin team had included it as damage limitation in case the lab reports had leaked to the media.
Later, when it became clear that nobody had the laboratory reports, the de Bruin defence began furiously burying the mention of the testosterone precursor. Yet that strange day in City Quay sticks out.
Knowing all she knew about the truth of the matter, de Bruin lied so hard she could have lied for Ireland. She put the boot into Al and Kay Guy, tongue-lashed her media detractors, belittled FINA, spared nobody. Beside her sat Erik, smiling and defiantly wearing a Sydney 2000 tie. The shamelessness took the breath away.
They had come down to the press conference via a staircase visible through a window. The sun was shining and it caught them there, framing them briefly: a couple of cheats but handsome ones and golden ones. For an instant, before the tide turned on them, you wanted to believe them and for sport to be all it is supposed to be.
