Ireland Still Not On the Olympic Podium

Israel won its first gold medal in the Olympics. Mazel Tov! While I'm happy to see the Jewish state win its first gold medal - in mistral sailing - I have been preoccupied by my disappointment in another country. I checked the medal count today, and I realized that one of the many nations that have not won any medals in Athens is . . . Ireland.

That's right. Ireland, the Emerald Isle, the land of my paternal ancestors, the nation of Joyce, O'Casey, and Bono, has not won a single medal at these Olympics. Not even a lousy bronze medal. One country that has at least managed to do that much is Eritrea, a former Ethiopian province on the Red Sea that achieved its independence in 1993. I mean, come on, Eritrea hasn't even been as independent as long as the Olsen twins have been alive, and it has a medal and the Irish have zip? And to think that only eight years ago, Ireland won three gold medals and a bronze, and they were all awarded to the same athlete.

I'm talking, of course, about swimmer Michelle Smith, whom I've already mentioned here. You might remember that back at the Atlanta Games in 1996, Smith was the subject of controversy after she won a place in the women's 400-meter freestyle final by dropping an exorbitant amount of time off her personal best. With only circumstantial evidence as their basis, the United States Swimming Federation accused Smith of using steroids. Compounding these accusations was the charge that Smith violated a rule to get into the final. And she did break a rule, but the Olympic judges ruled that she had done so inadvertently, and let her swim her way to victory.

The USSF had arrived in Atlanta, ironically enough, to keep an eye out for cheating swimmers from China. The Chinese, like the East Germans before them, had been suspected (with some justification) of giving steroids to their swimmers. Perhaps because Chinese Olympic officials were afraid of getting caught, their swimmers ended up being less formidable in the pool than expected. But when Michelle Smith came out of nowhere to win three swimming events, the USSF found a new villain in . . . Ireland? Yes, Ireland, the same country that had been kicked around by the English for eight hundred years, was suddenly the new Olympic bogeyman. First the Red Scare, then the Yellow Peril, now. . . the Emerald Green Menace. Hardly surprisingly, the Irish were offended by this demonstration of ugly Americanism, and a wave of anti-American demonstrations swept the country. We Americans had succeeded in offending the only European country where the people still liked us. (As an Irish-American, I was cheering for her all the way and I was disgusted by the USSF's charges.)

Smith, to her credit, was as ladylike as possible throughout the ordeal. She eventually took - and passed - several drug tests, but American swimming coaches, convinced that she was somehow cheating, insisted that she somehow had given a compromised urine sample. Adding to the fracas was the fact that Smith's husband, a Dutch swimmer, had been banned from competition for using steroids, thus rendering her guilty by association. Smith insisted that her improved swimming came not from her husband's medicine cabinet but from a different training regimen he made her stick to. With Smith clearly having her drug tests and popular opinion (except, of course, among Americans) in her favor, the USSF looked more ridiculous by the day. A major rift between Ireland the United States was averted, though, when President Bill Clinton - no stranger to accusations of foul play - congratulated Smith in person and apologized for the rotten way the USSF treated her.

Anyway, Smith returned to Ireland a celebrated athlete and national heroine. She soon announced that she was hoping to get an Olympic-sized pool built in Ireland and planned to get the Irish Olympic Committee to invest a greater effort in its swimming program. Then the thatched roof caved in.

As I noted before, Michelle Smith failed another drug test in 1998. Though she continued to profess her innocence - how could she fail a drug test and still be innocent was never exactly explained - she was banned from international competition for four years, effectively ending her career. Smith is 35 - four years older than the grande dame of American swimming, Jenny Thompson - so after she missed the Sydney Olympics, qualifying for Athens was out of the question for her. The result of all this drama-mama? You don't hear my Irish cousins boast about Michelle Smith so much these days.

I honestly don't know how much of an effect Michelle Smith's fall from grace actually had on the Irish Olympic movement, but clearly the momentum she built for it has dissipated. The only bright side to this sad saga is that Smith's victories from Atlanta remain in the record books. There is still no evidence that she took any steroids then, and she continues to insist that she did not. But her 1998 ban still makes those of us who supported her - including me - wonder if maybe, just maybe, we were fooled. We'll never really know. The best thing Ireland can do is leave this whole affair behind and concentrate on making new Olympic history. Instead, the Irish Olympic movement has collapsed.

Come on, my Irish cousins, get your act together. We don't need more Olympic athletes who lose all the time; we already have the U.S. men's field hockey team.