THE temptation for Michelle Smith to make a return to serious full-time training is obvious following FINA's release of the venues and dates for forthcoming major world swimming events.

Hong Kong, and the start of the World Cup series, may ring a bell for the triple Olympic champion, but Smith is more likely to make her comeback at the third World Short-course Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden, next April.

The profile of these championships will be raised by locating them at the most prestigious general sports arena in the world - the Scandinaium Arena - at which a temporary 25-metre pool is to be constructed.

Seating accommodation will be provided for up to 6,000 spectators at the championships, which take place over four days from April 17th to 20th. National federations have to confirm their participation on a provisional entry form by next Sunday week.

This would be too soon to confirm Michelle Smith's entry but, hopefully, an entry for the Irish champion will be negotiated by the closing date for individual entries on April 7th.

The World Cup series, which enabled Smith to demonstrate her potential so promisingly last year, starts in Hong Kong next month, running from January 4th to 5th. Other January dates for the series are: Espoo, Finland (22nd-23rd); Malmo (25th-26th) and Glasgow (28th-29th).

In February, the centres are: Beijing (8th-9th); Germany (1st-2nd); Italy (4th-5th) and Paris (8th-9th).

As reported here last week, three swimmers have been added to Ireland's squad for the European Short-course Championships at Rostock, Germany, from December 13th to 15th.

Michael Giles, Colin Lowth and Lee Kelleher are well deserving of the honour.

Dawn Fraser, 59, one of the greatest swimmers of all time, has been rushed to hospital after suffering a suspected heart attack.

Fraser was transported to Sydney from the town of Griffith, 370 miles to the southwest, where she had been holidaying, New South Wales state emergency services officials said in a statement.

Fraser won gold medals at three Olympic Games in a row - winning the 100 metres freestyle at Melbourne in 1956, at Rome in 1960 and in Tokyo in 1964. She also won a gold in the 4x100 metres relay in Melbourne, in which the Australian team set a world record. She also won four Olympic silver medals.

During her career, she won six Commonwealth Games gold medals, broke 27 world records and won 29 Australian titles.