Old adversaries

A certain amount of dissatisfaction permeated from Swim Ireland this week because of the Irish Independent's end of century swimming awards. The three names on the all-time list were Chalkie White, Gary O'Toole and Michelle Smith de Bruin.

Dave McCullagh, Swim Ireland Director, appeared bewildered by the choice of the three names and wrote a letter to the paper seeking an explanation of why those three names were chosen. Obviously swimming criteria was his main concern but it is also true that the three have not been that `chummy' with their parent body over the last number of years. For the record Gary O'Toole and Chalkie White stood above many in the sport and were instrumental in the downfall of the disgraced Irish Amateur Swimming Association. They were to the fore in highlighting the sexual abuses against children that took place in swimming under Olympic coaches Derry O'Rourke and George Gibney. The expose of those abuses forced the government to withdraw funding from the organisation. In an expression of total outrage of what went, on O'Toole famously stated that he "would not put a dog into Irish swimming".

Michelle Smith de Bruin threatened to sue Swim Ireland, who attempted to effectively scrap her Irish records after she was banned from the sport by FINA for four years for a drugs offence. Swim Ireland were forced to do a U-turn and all Smith de Bruin's records currently stand.

All just coincidence, of course.