Was Michelle de Bruin our greatest Olympian? Eamonn Coughlan says yes

Dyr · 10-06-2012 11:14AM

Who made that creep coughlan a senator?

funnights74 · 10-06-2012 11:24AM

Wibbs wrote: »

Bingo. You could add a certain Mr Lance Armstrong to the same list of the "suspicious". A man who claims to have never failed a test, not never to have taken enhancements. Damn near every teammate of his has lit up like a Christmas tree in tests, yet he's clean? Hmmmmm. Cycling as a sport has long passed the point of clean.

Definitely, cycling has long lost any claim to have cleaned itself up, despite constant attempts to introduce Biological passports. It is a sport with zero amount of credibility, and i write this as a keen cyclist, all be it as a hobby.
In my opinion most sports is basically a battle of the chemists, while the testing methods are becoming more and more sophisticated the cheaters are always one step ahead of the testers.
The up coming Olympics should be interesting to say the least.

funnights74 · 10-06-2012 11:25AM

Bambi wrote: »

Who made that creep coughlan a senator?

Enda!!

Kidchameleon · 10-06-2012 11:25AM

seanmacc wrote: »

Just to add some anecodal truths to the Michelle Smith De Bruin saga that has me viewing her treatment in a totally different light. Which I heard from a number of ex employees in Dublin Port.

The person who took the drug sample from Michelle Smith De Bruin was a well known ex Irish customs officer. (Won't give his name)

This particular customs officer had a reputation down in Dublin Port in the pre free movement of goods across the EU era for taking back handers off tuckers and freight companies to get their loads through customs and out of the port asap. (The reputation of this man was well known to many who worked in the old B&I)

There is a journalist researching this mans reputation. Although it does not prove Michelles innocence it does put an extra doubt onto what the accepted version of events was. There may be a reason the lady is so vividly to this day trying to clear the blemish on her reputation.

Let somebody else take a sample though. And why would somebody give him a back hander for something like that? Whats in it for them?

opinion guy · 10-06-2012 11:29AM

Red21 wrote: »

:eek: I think it's more than a blemish.
The thing I could never understand around all this is why isn't her coach lauded as as an irish hero by those who think she is innocent, Erik de bruin got this complete outsider to be one of the grestest swimmers of all time yet I don't remember the guy being once interviewed or ever having anything to say about it. If the lights of Jimmy Mcgee think so highly of her why has he never mentioned this guy, if they (jimmy and Eamonn) truly believe what they say, they should be trying to get a statue erected to honour him.
If you believe she is innocent then you believe that Michelle and Erik de bruin revolutioniesd swimming. How come the top swimmers havn't looked for or followed their training programme.

Erik de Bruin was suspended from competition himself in the 90's for doping
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_de_Bruin

If I recall correctly - this was the reason there was alot of suspicion thrown Michelle's direction before the tampered sample incident.

celticcrash · 10-06-2012 11:35AM

Michelle should be carrying the tourch not Louie Walshs wimpy rent boys.

sheesh · 10-06-2012 11:44AM

DebDynamite wrote: »

Taking the tampered sample aside, her victory at the Olympics does seem suspect when you consider she had no major championship wins for most of her career and then wins 3 gold & 1 bronze medal at the age of 28, which quite old for a swimmer

you do know that her times for those swims were very similar to those in years previously there was no obvious jump.her argument was that it was a slow olympics.

I have my suspicions about here too but I think they are all doing it.

3ndahalfof6 · 10-06-2012 11:49AM

the sooner they bring in the new Olympics for drug enhancing athletes and keep the original Olympics for the clean athletes the better, I know which one I will be watching.

The Aussie · 10-06-2012 11:56AM

sheesh wrote: »

you do know that her times for those swims were very similar to those in years previously there was no obvious jump.her argument was that it was a slow olympics.

According to the article i linked above these were her times.

"In 1992, Smith covered the 400m in 4:58.94 but when she won in Atlanta her winning time was 4:39.18. In 1993 she was not ranked inside the world's top 25 in any stroke, and now she was clutching three gold medals."

almost 20 seconds in 4 years is a bit suspect but to jump up in rankings this much will always have people asking questions.

uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/29022012/58/london-2012-michelle-smith.html

Logical Fallacy · 10-06-2012 12:21PM

dlofnep wrote: »

A very large portion of Olympians are on drugs, they just cycle well and haven't been caught. She was just in on the trend. Remember the talks of the Chinese eating dog-food to beat Sonia O'Sullivan? More like, roids.

You don't even really need to cycle so much at Olympic level I reckon. How long was Victor Conte pumping athletes full of **** that WADA had never heard of, let alone had a test for? I'm always amazed when I hear of someone at Olympic level getting busted for something like Stanz or D-bol, how ****ing out of the loop are they?

Guys like Victor Conte and William Llewellyn will always be a few steps ahead of WADA, and even then WADA are bent as **** to begin with.

sock puppet · 10-06-2012 12:26PM

fran17 wrote: »

i dont believe she was totally innocent of some form of wrong doing but nobody who gets to the very top of there field is.

Basis for this? The dominance of East Germany in the 80s and China in the early nineties would suggest to me that they were alone in having systematic doping regimes.

Nermal · 10-06-2012 12:28PM

funnights74 wrote: »

Definitely, cycling has long lost any claim to have cleaned itself up, despite constant attempts to introduce Biological passports. It is a sport with zero amount of credibility, and i write this as a keen cyclist, all be it as a hobby.

I think the athletes in every other sport are as doped or more so than cycling, it's just that cycling seems to have the harshest testing regime. Not harsh enough to result in a clean sport, obviously, but light-years ahead of anything else bar athletics.

Ficheall · 10-06-2012 12:44PM

Kidchameleon wrote: »

Let somebody else take a sample though.

There were other samples taken...

fran17 · 10-06-2012 12:59PM

sock puppet wrote: »

Basis for this? The dominance of East Germany in the 80s and China in the early nineties would suggest to me that they were alone in having systematic doping regimes.

oh i agree that on a grand scale the east german and chinese regimes leave everyone else for dead.but with the pressures and financial rewards on offer nowadays anything that gives one the slightest advantage would be too strong to resist.the whole marion jones saga was a huge eye opener to everyone no

K-9 · 10-06-2012 01:02PM

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

What Chinese? A Romanian athlete beat Sonia for gold fair and square in Sydney.

She finished 4th in her first Olympics, beaten by 3 Chinese women.

CKonetheonlyone wrote: »

not saying gabriela szabo WAS definitely juiced, but her coach / husband was found in possession of a car-boot full of performance enhancing drugs just after that race

Fair and square indeed!

My name is URL · 10-06-2012 01:05PM

What was it she took.. androstenedione? Wasn't that shown to have a very negligible (if any) effect whatsoever on increasing strength and performance levels?

It's debatable whether or not the reason for her 'success' lies with her taking the banned substance. She was wrong to do so of course, and deserves the fallout, but she was still a highly talented athlete imo.

Fey! · 10-06-2012 01:09PM

The Aussie wrote: »

on top of the tampering of the urine, Smith had also taken the bodybuilding drug Androstenedione, a metabolic precursor of testosterone, the night before the test."
and "three samples, taken between November 1997 and March 1998, had shown traces of Androstenedione, which was a banned drug.

That differs from wikipedia, which states that the drug was NOT a banned substance at the time.

Wiki wrote:

Smith later received a four-year suspension in 1998 after being found guilty of tampering with a urine sample. The ban was imposed after a urine sample taken during a routine random drug test was found to be contaminated with alcohol.[1] The bodybuilding drug Androstenedione was also found in her samples, but this was not a banned drug.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Smith

The whole lot looks circumstantial in my opinion. It reads along the lines:

Her husband did drugs, so she must do drugs too
I (Janet Evans) didn't beat her, so she must be doing drugs
Her urine reeked of whiskey, so she must have tampered with it, but we can't say how she did
Ireland have never won a swimming gold, so it's impossible that there must be a first time for it
She beat all of her previous performances, which must be impossible

loobylou · 10-06-2012 01:13PM

seanmacc wrote: »

In fairness, who would be naive enough to spike their samle with whiskey and think they'd not get caught?

What was being alleged is that she was unable to give a clean sample. She therefore deliberately contaminated said sample by adding whisky to it, probably in the hope it would be declared null and void.

twinytwo · 10-06-2012 01:23PM

Canis Lupus wrote: »

She was a drugs cheat and despite not testing positive, to suggest she wasn't juiced up for the olympics would be naive. Greatest Irish olympian my hole.

firstly the test was after the olympics... secondly she was accused of adding alcohol of some sort.. i think it was whiskey to a urine sample she gave, while there was someone sitting there looking at her.. so somehow she would need to smuggle the alcohol in and add it to the sample all without getting seen, which i find highly unlikely.... all sparked off by the americans because she beat their supposed up and coming star.

if it turns out that it is that easy to tamper with a sample why is not every athlete who was ever caught on drugs not do it.

The Aussie · 10-06-2012 01:30PM

Fey! wrote: »

That differs from wikipedia, which states that the drug was NOT a banned substance at the time.

From Androstenedione on Wiki (i normally dont try and quote Wiki as i find it unreliable and not precise at times), it does not say in which month it was banned but but the March 1998 one is well after the 1997 Ban.
"The International Olympic Committee in 1997 banned androstenedione and placed it under the category of androgenic-anabolic steroids"

http:/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androstenedione

My Quote for Comparison

The Aussie wrote: »

"three samples, taken between November 1997 and March 1998, had shown traces of Androstenedione, which was a banned drug.

Jimmyhologram · 10-06-2012 01:36PM

twinytwo wrote: »

firstly the test was after the olympics... secondly she was accused of adding alcohol of some sort.. i think it was whiskey to a urine sample she gave, while there was someone sitting there looking at her.. so somehow she would need to smuggle the alcohol in and add it to the sample all without getting seen, which i find highly unlikely.... all sparked off by the americans because she beat their supposed up and coming star.

if it turns out that it is that easy to tamper with a sample why is not every athlete who was ever caught on drugs not do it.

Here's a question I have:

Do you tamper knowing full well that the tampering will show up in the test?

In that case, does it make sense to tamper only because it's slightly better to be caught for tampering than to test positive for illegal drugs?

Just trying to understand the logic for it.

SocSocPol · 10-06-2012 01:41PM

Since she tested after every race at the Olympics and passed no problem, and since she was never stripped of her medals then yes she is Irelands greatest ever Olympian.

The Aussie · 10-06-2012 01:44PM

SocSocPol wrote: »

Since she tested after every race at the Olympics and passed no problem.

So did Marion Jones, it pays to have a good Chemist

Parsley · 10-06-2012 02:09PM

longshanks wrote: »

Fuck off. Sport is about what's right. What inspires to greatness. What makes the impossible happen. No room for cheats.

I saw that quote on the twitter earlier.

if that's how you feel, you shouldn't want to watch the 100m final.

Pherekydes · 10-06-2012 02:56PM

K-9 wrote: »

She finished 4th in her first Olympics, beaten by 3 Chinese women.

That is incorrect. She was beaten by a Russian, who died at age 43, a Ukrainian, who tested positive in 1993, and a Canadian.

Ficheall · 10-06-2012 03:32PM

Jimmyhologram wrote: »

Here's a question I have:

Do you tamper knowing full well that the tampering will show up in the test?

In that case, does it make sense to tamper only because it's slightly better to be caught for tampering than to test positive for illegal drugs?

Just trying to understand the logic for it.

Perhaps she hoped the persecution would end, at whatever cost?
Testing clean didn't seem to have done her any good.

Mars Bar · 10-06-2012 04:18PM

DUnno, maybe she was. However, I believe Katie Taylor will become the Irish Olympian Queen.

Jimoslimos · 10-06-2012 04:20PM

Mars Bar wrote: »

DUnno, maybe she was. However, I believe Katie Taylor will become the Irish Olympian Queen.

Regardless of whether she wins gold, Katie Taylor will never match Sonia in my eyes.

Ellis Dee · 10-06-2012 04:29PM

There was that unfortunate incident, which had nothing to do with the Olympics or any other competition, since it was the result of a surprise inspection of her at home, but she was checked, double-checked, treble-checked at the Olympics - probably more than any other swimmer there, because the Americans, especially, were really loud in their accusations - and nothing was found. :rolleyes::rolleyes:

Starobelgrade: Of course you wouldn't ride her. You'll only ever get to ride women that are in your own league - and she's way, way, way out of it. Try and have a nice **** as a consolation prize, though.

:)

As the only Irish person ever to win three Olympic golds - and they were not taken away from her despite probably the most vicious campaign of defamation against a successful athlete that the Olympics have ever seen - she is undeniably our greatest Olympian to date.

:D:D

Paparazzo · 10-06-2012 04:48PM

hardCopy wrote: »

Druggies out!

That she has been vilified in Ireland and others have been ignored in their own countries is to our credit. Long may our vilification of cheating continue.

Except Stephen Roche

Was Michelle de Bruin our greatest Olympian? Eamonn Coughlan says yes

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