Erik De Bruin and his wife Michelle disappear from top-level sport carrying matching bans for similar offences. A distinguished career in discus throwing ended for Erik de Bruin with a positive drugs test and a four-year ban. Michelle de Bruin's swimming career ends with a tampering charge and an equally hefty ban.

Erik de Bruin was born into a family of discus throwers. His mother and father excelled at the event and his sister, Corrie de Bruin, still competes internationally for Holland.

Erik competed for Holland in the Los Angeles Games in 1984 and Seoul in 1988 (finishing ninth each time). After Seoul, de Bruin made several key changes to his training regime. He sacked his father as coach and travelled that winter to Guadaloupe to train in virtual seclusion. It was reported that while there, de Bruin also met with Ben Johnson and his doctor, Jamie Astaphan.

After Guadaloupe, de Bruin's career took off. He moved from from seventh place in the world rankings to second by the end of 1989. His progress coincided with the establishment of random out of competition drugs testing. De Bruin was candid on the topic. "I wonder if that is really allowed. In the Netherlands there is after all a law on privacy," he said.

In 1990, he won a silver medal at the European championships in Split. A year later, he took another silver at the world championships in Tokyo.

In 1992, de Bruin surprisingly pulled out of the discus competition a day before the start of the Olympics, complaining of glandular fever. He nevertheless travelled to Barcelona and it was there he met Michelle Smith.

By the following spring, Smith had abandoned a university course in Houston, Texas, and was living in Celbridge with Erik. In March 1994, de Bruin moved back to his native Hardinxveld with e and protegee Michelle Smith.

He became involved in the lucrative Grand Prix circuit in the summer of 1993. In Cologne in August of that year, having finished third in that evening's competition, he was selected for drug testing and failed the test.