Michelle Smith/De Bruin

A2LUE42

In today's Independent they have an article that states 'That was a reference to Irish swimmer Michelle Smith who was banned for four years in 1998, two years after Atlanta, after testing positive for androstenedione.'

Now whatever your views on Michelle Smith/De Bruin may be, I thought she was banned for interfering with a sample, not for failing a drug test. Did she fail a test for androstenedione? As I don't remember that happening.

Or is this just another lazy Independent article repeating a similar statement in one of the tabloids from the day before?

A2LUE42

Online article now changed.

Ye’s brilliant performances were branded “disturbing” by Leonard, who said that her performances brought back “a lot of awful memories” of Irish swimmer Michelle Smith’s winning performance in the 400m medley at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

Smith, who married Erik de Bruin, the Dutch shot-putter who in 1993 was banned for four years for doping, was also banned for four years in 1998 for tampering with a urine sample. She lost her appeal but has continued to deny the charges.

dermo50

I read today that at her CAS appeal to the 98 ban her own Lawyer made reference to traces of androstenedione in her tampered sample.

I also read that this substance was only banned in 97, a year after she won her medals.

So even if we suspect that she was taking this substance in '96 it wasn't on the banned list at the time. Was she not free to take whatever she wanted once it wasn't on the banned list? Maybe I'm over simplifying the subtilties of the argument.

pc11

A2LUE42 wrote: »

In today's Independent they have an article that states 'That was a reference to Irish swimmer Michelle Smith who was banned for four years in 1998, two years after Atlanta, after testing positive for androstenedione.'

Now whatever your views on Michelle Smith/De Bruin may be, I thought she was banned for interfering with a sample, not for failing a drug test. Did she fail a test for androstenedione? As I don't remember that happening.

Or is this just another lazy Independent article repeating a similar statement in one of the tabloids from the day before?

She tested positive 3 times for Androstenedione, including in the famous whiskey sample, but it's not what she was prosecuted for. The tampering charge carried a higher suspension and was procedurally much easier as the test for Andro was brand new at the time. The Andro test was submitted as evidence to support the tampering charge as it gave a clear motive for that.

Andro was banned in 1998. I haven't found any reference to her 1996 samples being retested. I have always understood that classes of drugs can be banned as well as specific drugs. I'm not certain if that automatically meant Andro was banned anyway at that that, but as far as I know it would be the case now.

dermo50

So "Andro" was only banned in 1997. If it's suspected that she was taking this during her 96 olympic campaign then she was clean right?

pc11

dermo50 wrote: »

So "Andro" was only banned in 1997. If it's suspected that she was taking this during her 96 olympic campaign then she was clean right?

I would not use the word 'clean' for that case, no.

• Andro is and was a performance-enhancing drug, regardless of its legal status. As it's a testosterone booster, there is no sense in which using it is 'clean' even if the IOC hadn't gotten around to banning it.
  
• Similar drugs were already banned. Whole families of drugs can be banned now, I don't know if that was the case then. That would mean that any drug even similar to Andro would be automatically banned even if not specified.
  
• If she was taking Andro, it would be highly likely she was taking other undetectable drugs like HGH or testosterone. Why would you not do that?
  
• There was no test for HGH or testosterone until recenrtly, so we wouldn't know if she took them.
  
• As far as I can find, her Atlanta samples were not retested later for Andro.
  
• If she took Andro in 1997 and 1998 (which is certain) do you really think it likely she was clean in 1996?

The honest answer is we don't know for certain what she did in 1995/96. We can use our powers of ration to make a likely deduction. Or we can choose not to use ration.

I knew a lot about Erik long before then. I know what my ration tells me.

EDIT: I have found a reference (link below) that says that any drug that alters the testosterone to epitestosterone ratio would have been banned automatically since 1986 so presumably this would include Andro. Procedurally, however, it is difficult to take a prosecution on an unspecified substance so FINA went for the straightforward charge of tampering, which also carried a higher punishment.

The test for Andro was brand new at the time. At first they could only identify the family of the drug, but by the time of the hearing they had identified it exactly and this was entered as evidence in the hearing. But, in terms of the trial, the charge was for tampering with the Andro positive entered as evidence to support that charge. The presence of Andro was evidence for why the tampering would have taken place.

Conclusion: I don't know how you could argue that using Andro in 1996 was 'clean'.

Ref: http://www.iaaf.org/mm/Document/imported/42026.pdf

V480

It's kind of strange how Smith/De Bruin seems to have been erased from the collective memory of the country. I can't remember the last time I heard her name mentioned on RTE tv or radio. Someone once suggested that the Smith/De Bruin saga had more of a lasting effect on the country than the whole Saipan farce in 2002...which I think is probably right in some ways.