Smith, Michelle

Michelle Smith, married name Michelle Smith de Bruin, (born Dec. 16, 1969, Rathcoole, Ire.), Irish swimmer and lawyer who won four medals at the Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games to become the most successful Olympian in Ireland and the country’s first woman to capture a gold medal.

Smith began swimming competitively at age 13. Though she developed into one of Ireland’s premier junior swimmers, Smith realized that without more advanced facilities and training techniques, she would never be able to compete at the international level. She went to the United States to attend school and swim at the University of Houston, where she graduated with a degree in communications. Her times steadily improved, and she made the Irish Olympic teams in 1988 and 1992. At both of those Games, however, she was eliminated in the preliminary rounds.

In 1994 Smith moved to the Netherlands with her coach and future husband, Erik de Bruin, to prepare for the 1996 Games. The next year she emerged as an elite athlete, winning the 200-metre butterfly and the 200-metre individual medley at the European championships. She continued to improve in 1996, taking 19 seconds off her best time in the 400-metre freestyle. In response to questions about her sudden turnaround, Smith credited more sophisticated training techniques and a single-minded focus on swimming. She also pointed out that she was probably the most tested athlete in Irish history and that she had never tested positive for banned substances.

Prior to the Atlanta Games, Ireland had won only five Olympic gold medals, and no medal—gold, silver, or bronze—had been won by Irish women. In one week, however, Smith rewrote the Irish record books. The 26-year-old swimmer won the gold in three events—the 200-metre individual medley, the 400-metre individual medley, and the 400-metre freestyle—and captured the bronze medal in the 200-metre butterfly. Her triumph, however, was somewhat tarnished by unsubstantiated rumours that she had used performance-enhancing drugs. Some observers questioned her dramatic improvements in time and pointed to her marriage to de Bruin, a Dutch discus thrower who had been suspended from international competition for steroid use. Smith passed all the pre- and post-Olympic drug tests, however.

Smith’s success continued at the 1997 European championships, where she won gold medals in the 200-metre butterfly and the 200-metre individual medley. In 1998, however, she received a four-year ban for tampering with a urine sample during a drug test. Smith maintained her innocence, but her appeal of the ban failed. In 1999 she retired from competitive swimming. She later studied law at the University of Dublin and was admitted to the bar in 2005. Smith wrote the book Transnational Litigation: Jurisdiction and Procedure (2008).