Anyone have access to Kimmages article on Michelle Smith from today’s Sindo
Anyone who bought the Sunday paper will have
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In search of Michelle Smith, Part Three - The game was over but she was still sticking her chin out
Paul Kimmage
Far too many people were caught in the web of Smith controversy
September 26 2021 02:30 AM
Michelle Smith was sitting at a table signing copies of her just-published biography. It was a November afternoon three months after the Games, and a couple of hundred people were queuing down the stairs at Easons in Galway.
Her husband, Erik, watched for a moment then set off to peruse the shelves. He didn’t realise his wife was being studied: Smith signed the proffered books with penmanship that was careful and girlish, right down to the tiny circle with which she topped off the second letter of Michelle.
Or that he, too, was being examined: De Bruin’s appearance is formidable; he has large rounded shoulders, a narrow waist and a taut neck and face.
That was the genius of Michael Bamberger; a lot of American inquisitors wore pressed shirts and ties and rolled over you like thunder, flashing their credentials and brandishing their questions like swords.
Michael picked your pocket.
He dressed in loose-fitting sweaters, had a soft, round face and ambled with a gait that was made for a bookstore. Erik never saw him coming. One moment they were having a casual chat by the magazine rack . . . “Oh, that looks interesting, antiques and home decorating, huh?” . . . and the next they were having dinner at the Jurys Inn in Galway.
Bamberger wrote for Sports Illustrated. He had flown to Dublin a week before, spent a couple of days making calls and wondering how he would contact Smith and discovered, somewhat fortuitously, that she had just brought out a book. A day later he was driving to Galway. That night they were having dinner.
“There was just the three of us,” he says. “Someone told me the Irish custom was that the check doesn’t come until you ask for it, and that was great for me because I’d invited them and was obviously going to pay, so I had a captive audience. They were talking — he was especially talking — and it got more and more uncomfortable and . . . anyway, I felt like I wasn’t really getting the goods.”
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He described it as “verbal tap dancing”.
Michelle: “I knew I had the ability to make the times I made in Atlanta, but I needed somebody to bring them out of me . . . because Erik didn’t learn swimming technique out of a textbook, he could see swimming in a new way.”
Erik: “It just didn’t make sense to me, from a scientific point of view, that if the shortest distance between point A and point B is a straight line, then why, in her breaststroke, was she coming so far out of the water?”
Michelle: “I’m five-three. I have small hands and feet. I’m not built for swimming. But I don’t think anyone worked harder than me. We changed my diet, work-week, sleep, technique, mental attitude.”
Erik: “Of course, we’re not going to reveal the whole package. That would be stupid.”
Michelle: “When I walked into the call room in Atlanta, I knew my competitors were looking at me, and I was going to use that to my advantage. I learned that from Erik.”
Bamberger kept probing.
He asked Michelle if there were others in Ireland he should interview, in terms of people who had shaped her career. “Nobody,” she replied, shaking her head.
Not even her parents?
“Any question about me they can answer, I can answer,” she said.
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What about her younger siblings? he wondered. What did they like to eat at home?
“I can’t tell you,” she replied, “it’s been so long since I’ve eaten there.”
He drove to Rathcoole.
It was five months later when Bamberger’s feature — ‘Did She or Didn’t She?’ — appeared in Sports Illustrated. The writing crackled but there was a sad and troubling anecdote: “There are some signs of coolness between Michelle and her parents. Brian, a small feisty man who owns an auto parts store, and Patricia, a devout Catholic and skilful watercolourist who has dedicated herself to raising her children, are prominent in Gold but were never interviewed for the book . . .
“Still, they are certain that she told the truth when she said in Atlanta that she has never used performance-enhancing substances. As for their son-in-law, they believe he’s clean too.
“De Bruin has told them he was framed by the late Manfred Donike, the German biochemist who ran the drug testing lab used by the International Olympic Committee in Cologne and conducted the test in which de Bruin came up positive.
“Patricia and Brian know de Bruin is arrogant, and they’ve learned to accept it. ‘He lives for himself, and he lives for Michelle, and he doesn’t give a crap about anything else,’ Brian said one afternoon last Fall as he sat at home, a hot cup of tea resting on his knee.”
Bamberger had found a crack.
In Focus Podcast: Tainted Gold: The Michelle Smith Story Episode 1
In Focus · Tainted Gold: The Michelle Smith Story Episode 1
Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify
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“What annoys me in swimming is that there is a ruling that says that if you are in the top 20 in the world rankings — and prior to the Olympics it was the top 50 — then you have to fill out forms giving your address, telephone number and where you can be contacted within the next 24 hours for doping tests. Then they can arrive at your doorstep at any time, wherever you are in the world.
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“Whenever I leave Holland for more than a day I have to fax my association in Ireland with these forms letting them know where I am going and staying in case they are going to come after me for a dope test.
“That’s fine if it’s applied to everyone. But it isn’t. On the few occasions that they have come to our house in Holland, I have asked them about going into China for testing. They are not permitted in; they have to request that they be allowed in, and then they are only allowed in when the swimmers are on training camp.
“So the Chinese swimmers will know two or three weeks in advance that they are coming. Then it is not a surprise test anymore. I don’t object to doing the tests myself as I have nothing to hide.
“But I do think it is unfair that they can arrive on my doorstep at 9.15am on a Sunday when I am in my pyjamas but they cannot do the same thing to the swimmers in China.”
‘Gold: A Triple Champion’s Story (page 176)
In Focus Podcast: Tainted Gold - The Michelle Smith Story, Episode 2
In Focus · Tainted Gold: The Michelle Smith Story, Episode 2
Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify
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The Olympic gold medallist Michelle Smith has struck gold in Beijing — in the form of an award from China’s biggest sports magazine, whose 1 million readers have selected her as one of the top 10 world athletes of 1996.
The Irish Ambassador to China, Mr Joe Hayes, collected a special gold trophy for Ms Smith yesterday at a ceremony attended by dozens of China’s leading coaches and athletes in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
The champion swimmer, who brought home three gold medals from Atlanta, came third in the annual, much-anticipated poll organised by New Sports Magazine and Chinese Central TV. The survey determines the best known and most highly regarded world athletes among Chinese sports fans.
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Ms Smith received considerable publicity in China for her extraordinary feat in Atlanta. Her photograph was published on the front page of the China Daily when she won her third gold medal.
Her trials and tribulations at the hands of the US media struck a chord with Chinese people, whose own athletes were singled out in American press and television coverage of the Olympics for alleged irregularities in training.
Chinese newspapers accused American reporters of bias in favour of defeated US swimmers when Ms Smith came first in her medal events . . . In accepting the award from the vice-chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Mr Hayes said the vote “honours a great Irish athlete.”
The Irish Times,
January 30, 1997
In Focus · Tainted Gold - The Michelle Smith Story, Episode 3
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On January 24, two months after Sean Gordon’s letter of resignation, the Leinster Branch issued a statement to the Irish Independent: “Following continued attempts to discredit Michelle Smith’s achievements in Atlanta, we in the Leinster Branch of the Irish Amateur Swimming Association would like to express our disgust at these groundless and begrudging allegations.
“The lack of proper internationally recognised facilities in this country means that all our top swimmers have to travel to meets abroad if they wish to have their times recognised and included on the ranking lists. As a result, most of their best swims go unrecognised.
“We have watched Michelle Smith develop over a 16-year period and we are in no doubt that during that time she laid down a foundation on which she built her successful career Olympic career. We have seen her break records on freestyle, backstroke, butterfly and individual medley over distances from 200 to 1500 metres.
“With such little information known by the international media about Irish swimmers, it is not surprising that their main criticism of Michelle is that she emerged from nowhere and went straight to international stardom . . .”
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Gordon was dismayed. He had been watching Michelle swimming since she was eight years old and, as Irish Recorder, had been logging her national records since 1993. By 1995, she had set 43 new standards and become almost a stranger to him, By 1996, he regarded her as a different person.
His pulse was racing.
“Attempts to discredit.”
“Groundless and begrudging.”
Really?
They had obviously forgotten the letter sent to Michelle in July 1995 warning that if the “doping control consent form for the National Swimming Championships . . . is not received in this office by return duly completed and signed by you, your entries will be withdrawn from the National Championships.”
Or the numerous warnings from FINA, the sport’s governing body: that Michelle had failed to make herself available for an out-of-competition test the previous October; that efforts to locate her for testing “in the first three quarters of 1995” had also failed.
They had obviously forgotten that for almost a year after Michelle had emigrated to Holland the IASA still didn’t have an address for her, and had to deliver correspondence to her parents in Rathcoole to be faxed.
And what about the fuzziness of her testing location forms, three months before Atlanta: “Please note that I train in different pools. Council pools have their own timetables and holidays. Therefore any of several pools, especially during summertime.
“Training times vary according to training schedule, mileage, amount of swimming sessions in any one week. Sometimes weights are done in the morning and sometimes in the afternoon. I have no set structure.”
Or the warnings from FINA for same: “We noticed that the information (provided by Michelle) is rather vague and that on the second page the daily calendar is not filled out.”
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What about the European Championships in 1995 when Erik — serving a four-year ban for a doping offence — had borrowed the accreditation of a Belgian official to accompany Michelle to the doping control area?
He cast the paper aside.
Things got worse in the weeks that followed. A documentary by Chris Moore was spiked by management at UTV hours before it was due to be broadcast. A press conference at the Spring International in Galway — Smith’s first competition at home in two years — descended into farce:
“I’d like to restrict questions just to my swimming this weekend if you don’t mind,” Michelle announced, with Erik by her side.
Some did mind.
“The coverage of your achievements and recent events . . . has that interfered with your training?”
“I’d like to restrict the questions to my swimming,” she said
“But that relates to your swimming.”
“It doesn’t really,” she said. “I’m a swimmer and that’s what I do. I don’t read the newspapers. I go to the pool every day and I swim for five hours.”
“But you have issued writs.”
“If you want to discuss that you’ll have to contact my solicitor.”
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Gordon was a voracious consumer of newspapers and books. He had bought a copy of Gold — “I’ve never read such shit,” he told Shayne — and seen all of the reports. It was exasperating. People didn’t know the half of it . . .
And then they did.
Read More
In search of Michelle Smith, Part One - The girl from Barcelona
In search of Michelle Smith, Part Two - Ireland’s golden wonder… and the questions that followed
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The career of Ireland’s triple Olympic swimming champion, Michelle de Bruin, appeared to have ended in disgrace yesterday when the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland, rejected her appeal against a four-year ban imposed by FINA, the sport’s governing body, last summer.
The FINA suspension precludes Ms de Bruin from participation in next year’s Olympic Games in Sydney, and the 2003 World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan.
During the Lausanne hearing, it emerged that the drug androstenedione was found in three samples taken from de Bruin between August 1997 and March 1998. She always denied the use of banned substances.
In its statement yesterday, the court said it did not accept Ms de Bruin’s contention that it was the responsibility of FINA to eliminate all possibilities other than that the swimmer herself had tampered with a urine sample. It also accepted FINA’s case that Ms de Bruin “was the only person who had the motive and opportunity to manipulate the sample”.
The honorary secretary of FINA, Mr Gunnar Werner commented: “It is not a good thing for swimming to have had this case, but I hope on the other hand that this will serve as a warning for others not to try anything similar. It’s better that we know these things and don’t hide them.”
The Minister for Sport, Dr McDaid, declined to comment on the findings of an individual case, except to say that this was “a difficult time for Michelle de Bruin and her family”.
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No comment was forthcoming from Ms de Bruin or her legal representatives. In an earlier statement, the swimmer said that if her appeal to CAS failed she might consider proceedings in the European Court of Human Rights, but legal opinion in Switzerland suggests that the arbitration is binding on both parties.
The couple who carried out the urine test at the swimmer’s Kilkenny home in January 1998 said last night that they took no satisfaction from the decision except insofar as it had vindicated their integrity.
Mrs Kay Guy said: “It’s a sad day for Irish sport. I’m sorry that the pleasure and joy some people got from Michelle’s successes has been overshadowed now. But sport has to be protected.
Mr Al Guy said that this was the first case in which individual testers had been “attacked in a thinly-veiled way”. Ms de Bruin had had her day in court and had exhausted the procedures. “FINA have been vindicated, and hopefully sport is cleaner,” Mr Guy said. “She’s got to go and put her life together now and good luck to her. I bear her no enmity . . .”
The Fine Gael spokesman on sport, Mr Bernard Allen, said that the outcome was a personal tragedy for Ms de Bruin and a black day for Irish sport. The “glories of Atlanta” had been seriously diminished, he added.
The Irish Times,
June 8, 1999
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Sean Gordon (Rathmoyle, Co. Kilkenny) unexpectedly at his home. Beloved husband of Joan and much loved father of Shayne. He will be deeply missed by his wife, daughter, grandchildren Sean, Tom, and Mai, son-in-law Dermot, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, nephews, nieces, relatives and friends.
Reposing at his daughter Shayne’s home (Kells, Co Kilkenny) from 7pm on Wednesday (Feb. 19th) concluding with Rosary at 9.30pm Requiem Mass on Thursday at 11am in the Church of the Holy Cross, Kells followed by burial in Newtown Cemetery.
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RIP.ie
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
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Shayne Gordon had just arrived home from work when she noticed the missed call. It was a Monday afternoon, 15 months after her father had passed, and the caller had left a message. He was a journalist. The 25th anniversary of the Atlanta Olympics was approaching. He was hoping she might help with a story he wanted to write.
She let it stew.
Her son, Tom, was in the kitchen that night as she was heading to bed. She told him about the journalist and explained her reservations: “I’m not sure it’s the right thing.”
Tom was sure: “Mom, this is not just about Michelle.”
She laughed: “You little fecker!”
He was a carbon copy of her dad.
The following afternoon she drove to Rathmoyle. Her mother was receiving care for Alzheimer’s and no longer lived at home, but Shayne called regularly to keep an eye on the place. It was never easy. She had found him here. In bed. A good age — 84 — and a great way to go but it would always be too soon.
She went to the room that served as his study and started sifting through the boxes. It was all here, two decades of Sean Gordon’s life in swimming. Immaculately bound copies of his annual reports as Honorary Recorder; a forest of faded brown newspaper cuttings on Shayne and Gary and Michelle.
Handwritten notes on Michelle’s breakout performance at the 1994 World Championships gleaned from a report in the Irish Independent: “First international 200m butterfly ever . . . Technically not a great butterflier, Smith looked powerful and strong over the second half of the race making the hard work of the last year pay off.”
Dispatches from the war:
Dear Sean: “We have been advised to ask each Executive Member and those with access to the IASA Office in the House of Sport, to reply in writing to the following questions:
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- Did you supply a copy/copies of any IASA documents to any member/members of the media.
2 Do you have any knowledge of any copy/copies of any IASA document/documents being supplied to any member/members of the media?
Please reply by return.”
Dear Sean: “I refer to your fax regarding your inability to serve on the IASA swimming committee. Please note that Law 14.6 of the Constitution of the IASA states ‘The swimming committee shall consist of six members, one of whom shall be the Honorary Recorder.’ In the light of this law, I would urge you to reconsider your position.”
Dear Sean: “In the light of recent events within the IASA and our primary concern of survival it should be noted that all press statements must be channelled through the Hon Secretary as is normal procedure.”
Dear Sean: “It has come to the notice of the Executive Committee of the IASA that continual articles quoting you have been appearing in various newspapers over the last number of weeks. It has also been noted that you appeared on Channel 4 News and introduced yourself as an IASA official . . .
“As you are well aware the Association is currently experiencing some extremely difficult times and as such we are doing our best to keep the good name of the Association to the forefront. The type of speculation which you are causing may well in the short term bring the Association into disrepute.”
And his creed: “Irish records are not the sole property of the people breaking or holding such records, rather they are the standards set for up and coming swimmers. They must be genuine beyond any question.”
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The thing that intrigued her most was a small folder of correspondence relating to his first (and only) appearance on the masthead of a national newspaper on June 13, 1999 — five days after the announcement that Michelle had been banned.
He had written a column for the Sunday Tribune and had the edited version faxed to him on the Friday before it was published. He wasn’t happy — the pudding was being over-egged — and sent a fax with some comments to the then sports editor, Paul Howard.
He hated the opening paragraph:
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“Please rework it. The bit (that says) ‘I thought I knew Michelle’ is not what I intended or even thought. It sounds a little insulting to Michelle. I had praised her in my own words, which she was deserving of before she met Erik.”
And another further down:
“Paul, I would rather not have the article (published) if the paragraph starting ‘Most Irish swimming officials chose to hide’ was in it. I understand the difficulties of the officials. I do believe I would have been tougher than they were, however that is easy to say from here.”
The tone was wrong:
“Please lose the ‘I made a stand’ idea. It sounds like the first line of a country and western ballad. Custer made a stand and look what happened to him — I lose my hair the usual way. I would not say that I took a stand. That is not my form. And I would not blame my colleagues for ‘not standing up’. They were fettered by plenty of solicitors’ letters as were you and your colleagues.
“And the sentence starting ‘The others shared my concerns but preferred to hide.’ There’s that word again, ‘HIDE’. I would not object to ‘The others shared my concerns but without positive proof of wrongdoing or a failed test they were helpless,’ or something like that.”
This was the bottom line:
“I do not mind how much you leave out for space-saving reasons, but try to use my own words where grammar permits. If you rework the wording you seem to rework the meaning. No fault to you Paul, each to his own sensitivities.”
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The changes were made.
Shayne laughed, that was so him, but mostly she cried.
Letting him go had been heart-breaking. She had brought him back to her place and spent two days with family and friends celebrating all they loved about him. Colm Wilkinson and his wife Deirdre had travelled down — Sean had paid for his first guitar — and there were some old friends from her swimming days; Sinead Freeman, Gary O’Toole’s father, Aidan, and her former teammate, Sarah Farrelly.
February can be cold and brutal but they got a lovely morning. She tucked one of her gold medals beside him, waited for the undertakers to take him outside, and then lifted him onto her shoulders with her sons, Sean and Tom, and three of her dad’s cousins. Then they marched him down the hill and over the King’s River to the church.
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This is the house where triple Olympic gold medallist Michelle Smith will be getting away from it all. Smith and her husband Erik de Bruin have bought this Kilkenny house through a solicitor in trust and locals are looking forward to seeing the Irish swimming queen around the area soon.
The eight-bedroomed Kellsgrange House nestles in Kilkenny’s Nore Valley and has a tributary, the King’s River, flowing gently less than a hundred metres away from the front door. “This is the sort of place where Michelle can enjoy some peace and quiet,” says one local. We are sure there will be some interest in her presence at first but that should die down and she will be just one of us.”
The nearest village to the house is historic Kells . . . and the locals believe that having Michelle and Erik living there will increase the profile of the area. “It will certainly be a great boost to have them living here,” says one. “She has been a great ambassador for the country and we are all very proud of her.”
Sunday World,
January 19, 1997
For Michelle and Shayne, everything seemed possible during that summer of 1989 in Arizona. The Barcelona Games looked a certainty for both of them. They were training every day in perfect conditions; sharing a room and chatting all night and had discovered this wonderful treat called frozen yoghurt.
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They loved frozen yoghurt.
She had known Michelle most of her life but Shayne’s not sure they had ever been closer, and if you had shown them a crystal ball — their daughters playing together, their homes just a mile apart — they would have been thrilled but not surprised.
But life’s a funny old game.
On November 11, 1999, five months after her career-ending ban, Michelle gave birth to a daughter, Emma. The following April, Shayne gave birth to Sean and moved to Kells. Tom was born in December 2001, and Michelle gave birth to Laura a year before Shayne’s youngest, Mai, was born.
They hardly saw each other.
“Erik would drive the girls down to the handball alley to meet the (school) bus. He might nod and say hello but would never chat. Michelle would have been doing her law degree, and the only time I’d see her was if she passed me in the car and would smile or nod.”
Shayne was nine years in Kells before they spoke for the first time. Their daughters had become friendly in school and Mai was invited for a playdate, so Shayne drove her up and waited in the car until Michelle came out of the house. It was as if they had never met.
“We spoke for a few minutes and it was very civil,” Shayne says. “She was friendly and nice, but not overly. And that was it. I went back later and picked Mai up.”
They haven’t spoken since.
“I miss the friendship I had with Michelle,” she says. “She’s a good person. Her girls are lovely. It’s just one of those things. There were so many years of history with us and it was strange to lose her. It was an unnatural kind of ending, like she was just . . . taken.”
There is a deeper sadness.
Ten years ago, on her 39th birthday, she travelled with her parents to Killruddery House in Wicklow for a Colm Wilkinson concert.
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Her uncle was in brilliant form and dedicated a song to Shayne from the stage — She’s Leaving Home by the Beatles. The event had just concluded when something extraordinary happened.
“We were walking towards the car and bumped straight into Brian and Pat Smith,” she says. “We stood for a moment, almost holding our breath, and literally started hugging each other. My father and Brian had tears in their eyes — my heart nearly broke for them. There was a lot of pain there. It was incredibly emotional.”
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Me, Myself & I: Michelle Smith de Bruin, barrister and former swimmer
(Irish Independent, August 13, 2013)
The book that changed my life
Unfortunately, I have little time to read these days, but one of my favourite books is To Kill a Mockingbird. It remains one of the classics and is a book that every law student should read.
The quote that keeps me sane
‘Vir sapit qui pauca loquitur’, or ‘better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt’.
The best advice I’ve ever received
‘If you do what you always did, you’ll get what you always got.’ That was the advice given to me by my husband when he became my coach and started to change the way that I trained prior to winning three gold medals at the Olympic Games.
The film I’ve watched again and again
I have always been a bit of a film buff. I studied Communications (film and television) at university in the United States before doing law some years later. It was in the US that I first saw the film Citizen Kane. It may have been made more than 70 years ago, but it is still viewed by many as the greatest film ever made.
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The song I want played at my funeral
‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.’ I am not a proponent of grumbling about life’s gristle. Be positive and do something about it.
The scent that evokes pleasant memories
The smell of freshly baked bread. I was given a recipe for quick brown bread some years ago and it is simply delicious.
The picture that’s worth a thousand words
I have a photo of myself with Bill Clinton, which was taken at the Atlanta Olympic Games. I am dressed in my Irish track gear and it was a proud moment.
The item that takes pride of place in my wardrobe
None. However, I would not be without a pair of black stilettos. We are confined, as barristers, to wearing black. Shoes, perfume and nail varnish are some of the only things that distinguish us from our male colleagues.
The sentimental piece of jewellery
My engagement ring. I also have a very nice gold bracelet, which was a gift from the Aga Khan.
The gadget that I can’t live without.
My mobile telephone and my laptop. My mobile phone is a necessity for my job as I am often on the road and need to be contactable. My laptop is a workhorse.
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The item I’d save in a fire
My children’s artwork, which we have saved since they started school.
The characteristic I like most in myself
I am a fighter and always want to win. This is one of the characteristics that helped me achieve my goal as a swimmer. Those traits don’t go away once you finish your sporting career and I have had many clients who chose me to represent them as they say that I will fight for them (and I do).
And least
I always want to win! Not always a handy trait at the Bar, because sometimes the facts are simply stacked against you.
My first kiss
I can’t really remember, which means that it probably was not very memorable.
The last time I cried
No idea.
It was the best of times . . .
My favourite memory is the moment that I touched the wall at the Olympic Games in Atlanta and realised that I was an Olympic champion.
It was the worst of times . . .
My husband and I had the cutest cat, which we brought back from Ireland to Holland and back again to Kilkenny. One day, I received a call from a neighbour telling me that he had seen a cat on the road, which he thought to be ours. Sure enough, she had been knocked down and I will never forget carrying her back up the road to the house.
The person I call when things go pear-shaped
Simple. My husband.
8
A large hedge of thorns soon grew round the palace, and every year it became higher and thicker, till at last the whole palace was surrounded and hid so that not even the roof or the chimneys could be seen. But there went a report through all the land of the beautiful sleeping Rose-Bud (for so was the king’s daughter called); so that from time to time several kings’ sons came, and tried to break through the thicket into the palace. This they could never do; for the thorns and bushes laid hold of them as it were with hands, and they stuck fast and died miserably.
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Rose-Bud (Sleeping Beauty),
The Brothers Grimm
A Wednesday afternoon in late July. It’s the 25th anniversary of Michelle’s triple Olympic triumph and a journalist has arrived in Kells. There’s no bunting in the streets or bonfires in the fields. The locals haven’t seen her for years. A guy on the radio is lauding Mona McSharry, the first Irish swimmer for 25 years to reach an Olympic final.
He doesn’t mention who the last one was.
The journalist is reflecting on the last time he saw her, at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne. The month is May, 1999. She is sitting in the witness chair. The chairman of the panel has invited her, for the record, to state her name and address: “Michelle de Bruin of Kellsgrange House, Kells, County Kilkenny,” she says.
You had to be there.
It wasn’t Michelle Smith, it was Michelle de Bruin. It wasn’t Michelle de ‘Broon’, it was Michelle de ‘Broyn’. The game was over but she was still sticking her chin out.
He passes Kellsgrange House twice before he finds it. Some towering Leylandii trees have pushed up outside and it looks nothing like how he remembered it. He pauses for a moment outside the famous gates and decides to drive on. He has travelled from Dublin in search of Michelle Smith.
She’s not here.
Read More
In search of Michelle Smith, Part One - The girl from Barcelona
In search of Michelle Smith, Part Two - Ireland’s golden wonder… and the questions that followed
Sunday Independent
Read More Other Sports
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Atavist has some incredible pieces of journalism.
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Gobshite
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Enjoyed this read.
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I’m guessing Benzema.
Hell of a drug
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