Stunning Smith seizes gold

CRAZY TIMES. Michelle Smith, the history maker, became a swimming dictator in the Georgia Tech Aquatic Centre on Saturday night. The 26 year old Dubliner masterminded, and executed, the perfect strategy in the women's 400 metres individual medley to leave her stunned opponents trailing in her wake and collect Ireland's first ever Olympic medal in the pool.

It was a powerful, breathtaking performance. Stunning. A golden finale to a strange, magical day: when the much vaunted Chinese duo, Yan Chen and Yanyan Wu, failed to even make the B final; a day when defending champions Krisztina Egerszegi was usurped by a girl who, amazingly, had finished 25 places behind her in Barcelona four years ago.

The tide has changed, now. Smith, wearing a resin coated Speedo Aquablade suit, which resembles the type of garb worn by Victorian conservatives, glided like a missile through the 78 F water to win in four minutes 39.18 seconds, almost three seconds ahead of silver medallist Allison Wagner, of the United States, who edged out Egerszegi.

Crazy, crazy days. The gold medal could be a prelude to even greater things and Smith must refocus her energy and prepare to repel allcomers in the 400 metres freestyle today, the 200 metres individual medley on Wednesday and, finally, the 200 metres butterfly on Friday.

But one gold medal is already, deservedly, in her clutches. She ignored outside influences and became the controller, forcing Wagner and Egerszegi to attempt to upset her plans. It was a foolproof tactic.

The race went like a dream for the Irish swimmer. Smith led from Egerszegi by a full two seconds after the butterfly but was aware she would lose ground in the backstroke, at which stage the Hungarian led reaching the midway split in 2:13.18 with Wagner second (2:14.60) and Smith third (2:14.87).

After the breaststroke stage, Wagner had edged in to the lead. But it was tight between the top three, the American holding a mere .20 seconds on Egerszegy and .75 on Smith. Wagner, though, is comparatively weak on the freestyle and, soon, Smith was level. Moments later, magically, she was steaming clear and there was no fightback from Egerszegy.

And when Smith touched the wall first in a new Irish record of 4:39.18 (3.63 seconds inside her old mark), she had plenty of time to turn and give a two fisted, clenched salute to the Irish supporters and her family at pool side.

"I didn't realise I was the first Irish woman ever to win an Olympic medal, so you can't do much better than that," said Smith, minutes after receiving her precious gold from IOC official Pal Schmidt and FINA vicepresdient Dr Julio Maglione. "I'm still in shock, a little bit. But it is a great feeling."

Smith's win took the world by surprise, if not herself or her coach and husband Erik de Bruin. "Anyone who makes it to the Olympics trains hard, but I think I also trained smart. A lot of that is to do with my husband's background in track and field. We try to translate some of the principles of athletics into the swimming programme; I've done a lot more quality work, incorporated sprint training and some weight training," she said.

"The result is I'm a lot stronger than I was three or so years ago and I am also a lot lighter and a lot leaner," added Smith. "I've been working at this for the last three and a half years and I only really saw the fruits at the World Cup race in January of last year and, then, I got better results at the European Championships and better results again this year."

"Five or six years ago, people would have said you are too old at 26, that you should quit. I believe I am still getting faster, so I am not going to quit for the moment."

Indeed, on a night that the changing face of swimming was demonstrated by first ever gold medals in the pool for Ireland, Belgium (Fred Deburghgraeve in the men's 100 metres breast stroke) and New Zealand (Danyon Loader in the men's 200 metres freestyle), Smith's assertion was backed up by the performance of the United States's Angel Martino, at 29, three years older than the Irish woman, who collected a bronze medal in the women's 100 metres freestyle.

Martino was the oldest American swimmer in the Olympics since 1904, yet she achieved her best ever performance when finishing runner up to the tall China's Jingyi Le.

Le was, intriguingly, the only Chinese swimmer to do herself justice. Chen, 15, and Wu, 18, were expected to challenge Smith and Egerszegi - but they flopped completely.

Perhaps there was some soothsayer among the ACOG officials. A full two hours before Smith raced, the organisers raised three flags in a practice ceremony. They were the Chinese, Belgian and Irish flags. All three went on to win. Smith wouldn't mind if the clairvoyant repeated the act of faith on three further occasions over the next week.