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

AngeGal

Some people in this thread are friends with Michelle Smith and will never change their position. At least I hope they are, as that would go some way towards jusrifying their head in the sand approach.

The reality is she improved just under 20 seconds (19.77 seconds to be precise) in the 400m between 1992 and 1996. If those aforementioned people could point out any other female swimmer ever who improved that much at a similiar age as Smith, I would be much obliged.

You won't though because it isn't possible, it just doesn't happen.

Shelflife

Nodin wrote: »

....you might read back over my posts and note that I mentioned the bizarre increase in her performance....

Yes which you attributed to her drug taking,

You state that because she was found dirty afterwards it implies that she was dirty during the olympics, by extrapolting that she was therefore always taking drugs in competition.

so the bizarre increase couldnt be attributed to drug taking ---according to your own logic.

Nodin

Shelflife wrote: »

Yes which you attributed to her drug taking,

You state that because she was found dirty afterwards it implies that she was dirty during the olympics, by extrapolting that she was therefore always taking drugs in competition.

so the bizarre increase couldnt be attributed to drug taking ---according to your own logic.

...not to sure what you're saying there at all. She had a bizarre increase in performance. Subsequently she was found to have been taking banned substances. Given her avoidance of drug testing, its not too much to extrapolate that she was quite probably taking drugs earlier than when she was caught.

squod

Nodin wrote: »

....you might read back over my posts and note that I mentioned the bizarre increase in her performance....

PRs happen. At some stage in everyones training or life there will be high points performance wise.

Shelflife

AngeGal wrote: »

Some people in this thread are friends with Michelle Smith and will never change their position. At least I hope they are, as that would go some way towards jusrifying their head in the sand approach.

The reality is she improved just under 20 seconds (19.77 seconds to be precise) in the 400m between 1992 and 1996. If those aforementioned people could point out any other female swimmer ever who improved that much at a similiar age as Smith, I would be much obliged.

You won't though because it isn't possible, it just doesn't happen.[/QUOTE]

I dont know her at all, for the record i believe that she was as clean as the rest of her fellow swimmers.

Montjeu bred horses have never won the champion hurdle, it just doesnt happen until hurricane fly came along !

All swans are white , until they found the black swan,

it just doesn't happen, thats really not a valid arguement.

Nodin

squod wrote: »

PRs happen. At some stage in everyones training or life there will be high points performance wise.

....to that extent, at that age?

Shelflife

Nodin wrote: »

...not to sure what you're saying there at all. She had a bizarre increase in performance. Subsequently she was found to have been taking banned substances. Given her avoidance of drug testing, its not too much to extrapolate that she was quite probably taking drugs earlier than when she was caught.

Ok you are basing improvement in her performance on the fact that she was tested positive long after the improvement.

so how far back do you do you go with this analogy? you cant just pick a point (however logical that may be ) and say she started taking drugs there and this led to the improvement.

by default, in your agrument she must have always being taking drugs, and therefore the improvement may not be drug related at all.

A_Sober_Paddy

She was a drug cheat so its ridiculous to say she was our greatest ever Olympic athlete...

/thread

mathepac

Nodin wrote: »

Speculate then.

Also speculate as to why the man who supposedly introduced these miracle inducing methods has not gone on to become a leading coach in the sport.

Red21 wrote: »

It was more of a yes/no type question put that answer will do just fine.

Multiple invocations to answer or to supply speculative answers to irrelevant off-the-wall questions put to me; no attempts made to answer the simple straightforward and relevant questions posed by me.

Why, I wonder?

mathepac

AngeGal wrote: »

Some people in this thread are friends with Michelle Smith ...

I hope you have evidence to back that statement up.

AngeGal

Shelflife wrote: »

AngeGal wrote: »

Some people in this thread are friends with Michelle Smith and will never change their position. At least I hope they are, as that would go some way towards jusrifying their head in the sand approach.

The reality is she improved just under 20 seconds (19.77 seconds to be precise) in the 400m between 1992 and 1996. If those aforementioned people could point out any other female swimmer ever who improved that much at a similiar age as Smith, I would be much obliged.

You won't though because it isn't possible, it just doesn't happen.[/QUOTE]

I dont know her at all, for the record i believe that she was as clean as the rest of her fellow swimmers.

Montjeu bred horses have never won the champion hurdle, it just doesnt happen until hurricane fly came along !

All swans are white , until they found the black swan,

it just doesn't happen, thats really not a valid arguement.

It's a perfectly valid argument, your examples are completely different. Hurricane fly has always been talented, not like he was struggling in maidens in Ballinrobe or anything. The black swan is just totally unrelated.

She was at an age when virtually all swimmers are declining or struggling to maintain their standard yet she managed an incredible unprecedented improvement. It isn't naturally possible, no professional swimmer has ever done anything even remotely close to that level of improvement at a comparable age.

K-9

Shelflife wrote: »

Ok you are basing improvement in her performance on the fact that she was tested positive long after the improvement.

so how far back do you do you go with this analogy? you cant just pick a point (however logical that may be ) and say she started taking drugs there and this led to the improvement.

by default, in your agrument she must have always being taking drugs, and therefore the improvement may not be drug related at all.

Errrrrrrr, to the improvement! If she didn't have a superhuman improvement we wouldn't be discussing Olympic medals!

From my memory of the games O'Toole did hint at something amiss with it, even on RTE.

Shelflife

AngeGal wrote: »

Shelflife wrote: »

It's a perfectly valid argument, your examples are completely different. Hurricane fly has always been talented, not like he was struggling in maidens in Ballinrobe or anything. The black swan is just totally unrelated.

She was at an age when virtually all swimmers are declining or struggling to maintain their standard yet she managed an incredible unprecedented improvement. It isn't naturally possible, no professional swimmer has ever done anything even remotely close to that level of improvement at a comparable age.

No ,the arguement was that no off spring of montjeu has EVER won the champion hurdle it just doesnt happen

---- until someone comes along and does it

squod

Nodin wrote: »

....to that extent, at that age?

Oh yeah. Used to train with this lad. Mid to late twenties, Trained to peak for comp. Set a new WR in a tested fed. Tried the same weight two weeks later and couldn't do it.

82.5 78.7 Kosmar Lempu Open R 207.5 215 221 0.6505 139.86 1st WR

The way I see it, some burd who got in and out of a pool a lot took some medication for a cold after the event. Is it possible she wasn't doping? Yes. Is it possible she was competing against athletes who were doping? Maybe.

squod

Shelflife wrote: »

Ok you are basing improvement in her performance on the fact that she was tested positive long after the improvement.

There's no guarantee that PEDs will work. It's a mystery to me that people think they're a cure all.

http://www.steroidology.com/forum/anabolic-steroids-bodybuilding-articles/152196-five-reasons-youre-still-skinny.html

AngeGal

Shelflife wrote: »

AngeGal wrote: »

No ,the arguement was that no off spring of montjeu has EVER won the champion hurdle it just doesnt happen

---- until someone comes along and does it

It's about the level of improvement at an age when swimmers are declining.

Your example would be relevant had I said no Irish swimmer has ever won gold, it isn't possible. I didn't so it's not relevant.

If you want to be pedantic I should have said "isn't possible" rather than "doesn't happen" but that's merely semantics.

Shelflife

squod wrote: »

There's no guarantee that PEDs will work. It's a mystery to me that people think they're a cure all.

http://www.steroidology.com/forum/anabolic-steroids-bodybuilding-articles/152196-five-reasons-youre-still-skinny.html

No Squod, i was making the point that the fact that you are caught two years after an event does not prove (it may imply) that you were dirty for the event in question.

leeroybrown

In my view she's a drug cheat and an embarrassment to Irish sport.

AngeGal

mathepac wrote: »

I hope you have evidence to back that statement up.

Why would I need evidence? Will you hire Michelle to sue me? Although for her to have a case, she would need to argue that being friends with her is defamatory to someone's reputation, would be an interesting case eh?

In any event you took my quote out of context and conveniently left out the line "Or at least I hope they are...".

Your reaction does make me wonder if I hit close to the bone though.

Shelflife

AngeGal wrote: »

Shelflife wrote: »

It's about the level of improvement at an age when swimmers are declining.

Your example would be relevant had I said no Irish swimmer has ever won gold, it isn't possible. I didn't so it's not relevant.

If you want to be pedantic I should have said "isn't possible" rather than "doesn't happen" but that's merely semantics.

I know the point that you are making but saying something "isnt possible" or "doesnt happen" isnt a valid arguement.

the sub 4m mile "wasnt possible" sub 10sec 100m, landing on the moon/mars etc man flying,crossing the atlantic in a plane.

all of these things "werent possible" bit now they are, things change improvements are made , she may well have been juiced up but there is no proof to say she actually was.

The thing about Michelle Smith winning the medals at the Olympics as Jimmy Magee correctly pointed out is that she was nowhere near beating a world record for any of the medals.
Hardly the stuff of performance enhancing drugs when you think about it.

AngeGal

Shelflife wrote: »

AngeGal wrote: »

I know the point that you are making but saying something "isnt possible" or "doesnt happen" isnt a valid arguement.

the sub 4m mile "wasnt possible" sub 10sec 100m, landing on the moon/mars etc man flying,crossing the atlantic in a plane.

all of these things "werent possible" bit now they are, things change improvements are made , she may well have been juiced up but there is no proof to say she actually was.

My last post on this point. I understand your point aswell and I wouldn't say it isn't possible to cure cancer or anything like that.

However it is a valid argument when you judging the talent of a person over a period of time and the cirumstances. It's not like she went from being an amateur training two days a week to full time pro. There were no changes which could justify such an unprecedented level of improvement.

Usain Bolt is the greatest 100m runner that has ever lived but if he suddenly broke 8.5 seconds this summer or if glenn whelan suddenly became better than messi that would be enough for me to reach conclusions. Each to his/her own though.

AngeGal

Deleted User wrote: »

The thing about Michelle Smith winning the medals at the Olympics as Jimmy Magee correctly pointed out is that she was nowhere near beating a world record for any of the medals.
Hardly the stuff of performance enhancing drugs when you think about it.

Well performance enhancing drugs will only do so much. If I take them I ain't gonna qualify for the Olympics never mind set a new world record! I would say her extraordinary level of improvement is more than in line with what could be reasonably expected from taking performance enhancing drugs.

K-9

Deleted User wrote: »

The thing about Michelle Smith winning the medals at the Olympics as Jimmy Magee correctly pointed out is that she was nowhere near beating a world record for any of the medals.
Hardly the stuff of performance enhancing drugs when you think about it.

Think about that though. She was a very talented Irish swimmer, getting to a final would have been an immense achievement. There were no signs of her times or form in her early career, she was an excellent Irish swimmer, obviously not Olympic gold standard.

Red21

mathepac wrote: »

Tell me where is the specific physical, test results show without doubt that she took drugs in the lead up to or during the Olympics. I have no idea what "supporting evidence" means in this context. Do actual test results exist that confirm doping at the Olympics? If so where are they, who has them and when was the hearing to adjudicate on Michelle's status based on these results held?

Are these the questions you're on about?
If so, nobody is saying such test results exist.

mathepac wrote: »

That would leave her guilty by association or guilty of poor decision making. So what?

My post wasn't in relation to weather or not she was guilty, i was saying that no matter what your view is, you have to agree that michelle de bruin decided herself to work with a coach who is banned from all competition, this says alot about the kinda woman she is.

Can you answer my question i've been asking it since the start of the thread,What training did she do after 92 that she hadn't done before 92 that took you from being a complete outsider(never made the olympic semi-finals on any event) to being able dominate world swimming?

Red21

Deleted User wrote: »

The thing about Michelle Smith winning the medals at the Olympics as Jimmy Magee correctly pointed out is that she was nowhere near beating a world record for any of the medals.
Hardly the stuff of performance enhancing drugs when you think about it.

Don't know how Jimmy Magee gets away with this nonsence, she took 20 sec's off her 400m time an event that only takes 4 mins.
If paul hession had the same improvement he'd be in with a chance to win the 200m.

mathepac

AngeGal wrote: »

Why would I need evidence? Will you hire Michelle to sue me? Although for her to have a case, she would need to argue that being friends with her is defamatory to someone's reputation, would be an interesting case eh?....

Your implication of friendship between Michelle and I means that my motivations in challenging the assumptions in relation to her case could have a basis other than a quest for natural justice or my deep aversion to those among us who are deeply prejudiced.

This implication of yours is clearly an attempt at trolling.

DEFTLEFTHAND

Red21 wrote: »

Don't know how Jimmy Magee gets away with this nonsence, she took 20 sec's off her 400m time an event that only takes 4 mins.
If paul hession had the same improvement he'd be in with a chance to win the 200m.

Jimmy is a bit of a romantic when it comes to Irish sport, sure the clown regards Bernard Dunne as a proper World Champion.

gbee

AngeGal wrote: »

You won't though because it isn't possible, it just doesn't happen.

That's the mantra from the American girls that she left in her wake. She did have many advantages, technique, suit at the time was revolutionary, provocative and controversial, now they all wear them, training, diet, discipline were all in excess of the 'average' [amateur] athlete at the time too.

She was a 'professional' and she did take the candy from the babies.

DEFTLEFTHAND

FullRetard wrote: »

they are more often bought for inclusion in a libary as opposed to some one buying for a bit of light reading in the jax!!

For college students I suppose. Practitioners usually buy.

AngeGal

gbee wrote: »

That's the mantra from the American girls that she left in her wake. She did have many advantages, technique, suit at the time was revolutionary, provocative and controversial, now they all wear them, training, diet, discipline were all in excess of the 'average' [amateur] athlete at the time too.

She was a 'professional' and she did take the candy from the babies.

Pity she was racing against fellow pros, i'm sure they were chompîng down Mcdonalds and hadn't spent much time perfecting their technique though. Candy from babies??? More like a wallet from someones pocket. Keep drinking the kool-aid though when the rest of us have long since realised it's poisonous.

mathepac wrote: »

Your implication of friendship between Michelle and I means that my motivations in challenging the assumptions in relation to her case could have a basis other than a quest for natural justice or my deep aversion to those among us who are deeply prejudiced.

This implication of yours is clearly an attempt at trolling.

Get over yourself. My initial post was directed at all those defending her and I added "At least I hope they are..." as that would go someway towards understanding the entirely illogical approach being taken by said defenders. Your response then took my quote of context and rather bizarrely requested evidence almost implying I had gotten myself into trouble could I not provide such evidence.

mathepac

Red21 wrote: »

Are these the questions you're on about?
If so, nobody is saying such test results exist...

Excellent, they don't exist and the case for demonising her is based purely on prejudice, as I already stated.

Red21 wrote: »

...
My post wasn't in relation to weather or not she was guilty, i was saying that no matter what your view is, you have to agree that michelle de bruin decided herself to work with a coach who is banned from all competition, this says alot about the kinda woman she is...

Sure, given their marriage she was very human - a woman in love. So what's your point?

Red21 wrote: »

... Can you answer my question i've been asking it since the start of the thread,What training did she do after 92 that she hadn't done before 92 that took you from being a complete outsider(never made the olympic semi-finals on any event) to being able dominate world swimming?

Jaysus don't spare the hyperbole. I can't remember what I ate for breakfast yesterday. If I ever knew the answer to your question, it's long forgotten, apart from which I'm not a swimming coach.

gbee

AngeGal wrote: »

Pity she was racing against fellow pros, i'm sure they were chompîng down Mcdonalds .

You know, pretty much they were. Were you around and taking an interest at the time?

If you were, describe some of the coverage Michelle got PRIOR to races. List the complaints lodged against Michelle, what were they and why? What was Michelle's reply?

mathepac

AngeGal wrote: »

... that would go someway towards understanding the entirely illogical approach being taken by said defenders. ...

I've asked a number of perfectly reasonable, logical questions of those who seek to demonise Michelle and her Olympic achievements. I have pointed out time and again that Michelle's detractors want to use as evidence of cheating, test results established from samples taken almost two years after the event. I see that as being logical; don't you?

Pherekydes

I wonder what was the cause of the huge drop-off in swim times, especially women, from 1988 and 1992 to 1996?

Egerszegyi, 3rd behind de Bruin, swam faster as a 14 year-old in 1988 than she did as a 22 year-old in 1996. Evans was 17 in 1988, when she set a 400m FS record that de Bruin got nowhere near in 1996, despite rapid improvements in swimsuit technology.

What happened to the rest of the female swimming population that somehow bypassed de Bruin?

Every Olympics, up to 1996, saw plenty of WRs and ORs in the pool (female program only). There were nine ORs in 1988 and 2 WRs. In 1992, there were 2 WRs and seven ORs.

In 1996, there was one single Olympic record and no world records.

Pool technology and suit technology were improving. Why not times?

K-9

Pherekydes wrote: »

I wonder what was the cause of the huge drop-off in swim times, especially women, from 1988 and 1992 to 1996?

Egerszegyi, 3rd behind de Bruin, swam faster as a 14 year-old in 1988 than she did as a 22 year-old in 1996. Evans was 17 in 1988, when she set a 400m FS record that de Bruin got nowhere near in 1996, despite rapid improvements in swimsuit technology.

What happened to the rest of the female swimming population that somehow bypassed de Bruin?

Every Olympics, up to 1996, saw plenty of WRs and ORs in the pool (female program only). There were nine ORs in 1988 and 2 WRs. In 1992, there were 2 WRs and seven ORs.

In 1996, there was one single Olympic record and no world records.

Pool technology and suit technology were improving. Why not times?

Not an expert but maybe the break up of the Iron Curtain and better testing?

Getting back to de Bruin, I think pretending that there was no issues or concerns over her gold medals also does a disservice to Sonia O'Sullivan, some of the athletes who beat her had "issues" over drugs as well.

Pherekydes

K-9 wrote: »

Not an expert but maybe the break up of the Iron Curtain and better testing?

And better testing would lead to slower times for the likes of Evans because...

And Michelle de Bruin is the one villified? She was just playing catch-up.

LimGal

How does that saying go,something about if you put two men in prison overnight one of them is guilty of a crime the other falsely accused of the same crime.
The guilty person will sleep soundly and not put up too much of a fuss while the innocent party will be up all night pleading his innocence to anyone who will listen.

Michelle has made fcuk all racket about her supposed injustice of being branded a drugs cheat and so by my fool-proof theory above she is as guilty as fcuk in my eyes:D

But all joking aside I do think she is guilty.....didnt one of her urine samples have enough whiskey in it to kill a small horse:eek:and so destroying any evidence of performance enhancing drugs.

mathepac

LimGal wrote: »

...
But all joking aside I do think she is guilty.....didnt one of her urine samples have enough whiskey in it to kill a small horse:eek:and so destroying any evidence of performance enhancing drugs.

Pity you didn't take time to read the thread. The sample you speak of was taken after the Olympics and personally I don't know of any small horses who drink whiskey.

It's possible that certain posters here have evidence of small horses drinking whiskey and some may even have witnessed events such as this even in the Olympics, but they have no evidence they can produce or point to that Michelle cheated at the Olympic games, thus her medals are still hers and her status as a multiple Olympic champion is unblemished.

squod

Pherekydes wrote: »

I wonder what was the cause of the huge drop-off in swim times, especially women, from 1988 and 1992 to 1996?

Egerszegyi, 3rd behind de Bruin, swam faster as a 14 year-old in 1988 than she did as a 22 year-old in 1996. Evans was 17 in 1988, when she set a 400m FS record that de Bruin got nowhere near in 1996, despite rapid improvements in swimsuit technology.

What happened to the rest of the female swimming population that somehow bypassed de Bruin?

Every Olympics, up to 1996, saw plenty of WRs and ORs in the pool (female program only). There were nine ORs in 1988 and 2 WRs. In 1992, there were 2 WRs and seven ORs.

In 1996, there was one single Olympic record and no world records.

Pool technology and suit technology were improving. Why not times?

An interesting one. The sport probably matured in 96. Every record since could have been set by ''one offs'' natural athletes or outstanding performers (rather than well trained athletes).

What's his name who won gold practically had documentaries about him, his short legs and long torso.....Michael Phelps. Theory explained in the S&S sports archives->

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056542841&page=5

Motorist

mathepac wrote: »

Pity you didn't take time to read the thread. The sample you speak of was taken after the Olympics and personally I don't know of any small horses who drink whiskey.

It's possible that certain posters here have evidence of small horses drinking whiskey and some may even have witnessed events such as this even in the Olympics, but they have no evidence they can produce or point to that Michelle cheated at the Olympic games, thus her medals are still hers and her status as a multiple Olympic champion is unblemished.

The dose required to kill half a population of a test animal such as rats is measured. This is expressed as mg/kg. Expressing as such allows for comparison to other animal species. Toxicity is not always dependent on body mass. The lethal alcohol dose to kill half a given population of rats has been measured at around 7,000mg/kg. A small horse would weigh about 200kg. About 10% of alcohol is excreted in urine.

Besides that, I believe that the alcohol content was described as sufficient to kill a human. That amount is still calculated from rat models. Basically Smyth poured whiskey from under her baggy sweater into the urine sample in attempt to conceal banned substances.

FINA, swimming's international federation, had repeatedly expressed concern that Smith was unavailable for out-of-competition drug tests from 1995 onward.

She refused to appear on the Late Late show in 2007 if any reference was made to her swimming career. RTE would not agree to this unreasonable demand. Wouldn't an innocent person do all they could to defend themselves?

sock puppet

squod wrote: »

An interesting one. The sport probably matured in 96. Every record since could have been set by ''one offs'' natural athletes or outstanding performers (rather than well trained athletes).

It could be a long time before some of the times set in 2009 are beaten but swimmers now are still better than in the 90s.

mathepac

Motorist wrote: »

The dose required to kill half a population of a test animal such as rats is measured. This is expressed as mg/kg. Expressing as such allows for comparison to other animal species. Toxicity is not always dependent on body mass. The lethal alcohol dose to kill half a given population of rats has been measured at around 7,000mg/kg. A small horse would weigh about 200kg. About 10% of alcohol is excreted in urine. ...

Which is interesting (wildly inaccurate and mildly interesting) but so what? What has it got to do with Michelle de Bruin's Olympic achievements?

Just FYI, humans excrete at most, 5% of consumed beverage alcohol unmetabolised through sweat, breath and urine. That's OT I know but just FYI.

Motorist wrote: »

... Besides that, I believe that the alcohol content was described as sufficient to kill a human. ...

Your beliefs are not evidence of anything, much and all as you might wish it to be different.

Motorist wrote: »

... Basically Smyth poured whiskey from under her baggy sweater into the urine sample in attempt to conceal Androstenedione. ...

I see. You witnessed this at first hand in the jacks with Michelle and the testers? This is real evidence or is it just more idle speculation?

Motorist wrote: »

... FINA, swimming's international federation, had repeatedly expressed concern that Smith was unavailable for out-of-competition drug tests from 1995 onward. ...

So why didn't they do something about it then or were their expressed concerns the FINA equivalent of phoning the Joe-show? I know you can't answer that but I'd be inclined to benchmark an organisation's concerns about a situation by their actions rather than by the level of their whinging.

Motorist wrote: »

... She refused to appear on the Late Late show in 2007 if any reference was made to her swimming career. RTE would not agree to this unreasonable demand. Wouldn't an innocent person do all they could to defend themselves?

A private individual has the right to accept or decline media invitations. If the two parties can't agree an agenda then the show is a non-starter. I don't know if she made any demands of RTE or if these demands were unreasonable, but evidently you do.

Why would any person more especially an innocent one choose to subject themselves to the sort of RedTop tits-and-arses "journalism" that Turbidity and his colleagues slap together? She had no video to sell, no film to promote, no newspaper exclusive about "my return from the horrors of chicken kiev addiction while giving birth 19 times in a squat" plus her academic publications and reference works were clearly several notches above the programme and its viewers scope intellectually, so what had she to gain?

Indo404

Originally Posted by Motorist
... FINA, swimming's international federation, had repeatedly expressed concern that Smith was unavailable for out-of-competition drug tests from 1995 onward. ...
Not true. FINA even wrote her a letter stating that FINA had no problem with her availability for out-of-competition tests. The letter was produced at the CAS hearing in 1998.

Indo404

Red21 wrote: »

Don't know how Jimmy Magee gets away with this nonsence, she took 20 sec's off her 400m time an event that only takes 4 mins.
If paul hession had the same improvement he'd be in with a chance to win the 200m.

The 400 meter time in 1995 was a training swim for her Dutch club. You should compare like with like. She did not "improve" 20 seconds. Yes there is a difference of 20 seconds in those two times. Look at her time in the 400 IM in 1995 (4:42) and her time in 1996 (4:39). Same distance Those are two times you can compare. She was rested and tapered for both those meets.

PS "She came out of nowhere" Where did MS finish two years before the Olympics in 1996 at the wold championships in Rome?

Indo404

She refused to appear on the Late Late show in 2007 if any reference was made to her swimming career. RTE would not agree to this unreasonable demand. Wouldn't an innocent person do all they could to defend themselves?[/QUOTE]


No. Michelle Smith had no problem going on the Late Late show. It was Larry Masterson, the producer of the LL, who made that call.

Motorist

mathepac wrote: »

Which is interesting (wildly inaccurate and mildly interesting) but so what? What has it got to do with Michelle de Bruin's Olympic achievements?

Another poster compared the alcohol concentration of her urine sample to being a lethal dose to kill a large animal such as a horse. In your ignorance, you scorned at this questioning if anyone had ever seen a horse drinking. Of course, there is laboratory basis for calculating lethal doses of all drugs for human or veterinary use. You even foolishly questioned if anyone had ever witnessed a horse drinking.

Her concentrated sample came about from her pouring whiskey directly into the sample jar in a desperate attempt to conceal the banned substances she had been taking.

Motorist

Indo404 wrote: »

No. Michelle Smith had no problem going on the Late Late show. It was Larry Masterson, the producer of the LL, who made that call.

She refused to go on the Late Late show if asked about her swimming career.
RTE would not agree to demands and pre-conditions, so she chose not to go on.

Maybe she's in denial now about what she did or maybe she thought it would be bad her business as a barrister if she once again had to defend her days as being a cheat.

Indo404

Motorist wrote: »

Another poster compared the alcohol concentration of her urine sample to being a lethal dose to kill a large animal such as a horse. In your ignorance, you scorned at this questioning if anyone had ever seen a horse drinking. Of course, there is laboratory basis for calculating lethal doses of all drugs for human or veterinary use.

Her concentrated sample came about from her pouring whiskey directly into the sample jar in a foolish attempt to conceal the banned substances she had been taking.

One problem. Androstenedione was not a banned substance at the time. FINA only put it on the list in 1999.

Indo404

Motorist wrote: »

She refused to go on the Late Late show if asked about her swimming career.
RTE would not agree to demands and pre-conditions, so she chose not to go on.

Maybe she's in denial now about what she did or maybe she thought it would be bad her business as a barrister if she once again had to defend her days as being a cheat.

No Ask Larry Masterson. MS was willing to go on the LL. She explained her position at the time after the Celebrities Go Wild in an interview in Ireland on Sunday.