Michelle de Bruin escapes any mention of her post-Atlanta controversies in the Olympic Council of Ireland-endorsed Sydney 2000 booklet. The five Olympic rings stamped on the front of the publication as well as a foreword inside from OCI president Pat Hickey ensures that the Irish section of the Olympic movement approves.
The magazine, a trawl through Ireland's golden Olympic moments in tandem with profiles of global figures, describes de Bruin's victories in detail. The triple gold medal winner's citation goes: "Michelle Smith wrote an incredible and golden chapter into the history of Ireland in the Olympic Games."
And so she did. A mention of her subsequent four-year ban from the sport for a drugs offence is, however, nowhere to be seen, nor is there mention of the global opprobrium visited upon her and vicariously upon Irish sport in the aftermath of the episode. Revisionism?
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