Smith in fine form

COMPETING only days before her wedding day at the Dutch national championships, Ireland's dual European champion Michelle Smith, displayed super fitness levels and versatility when adding the Irish 200 metres freestyle record to her varied and consistent achievements.

Michelle marries her coach Eric de Bruin in the townland of Hardingsveld tomorrow. De Bruin, who won a silver medal in the discus at the Barcelona Olympics, has been coaching Michelle for almost (our years, successfully applying his knowledge of track and field techniques to swimming, a sport with which he had no previous association.

Smith had been concentrating totally on her quality training work, but decided to interrupt her routine to compete in the Dutch championships. She re wrote the Irish record for the 200m freestyle with a time of two minutes 00.71 seconds. This time places her eighth in the world in an event which is far from being her forte. It also gives her automatic qualification for this event in the Atlanta Olympics. She also won the 100m butterfly in a time of one minute 02.15 seconds and also took first place in the 400m individual medley in a time of four minutes 52.00 seconds. She was also a winner on backstroke, although fractionally outside her best time with two minutes 17.93 seconds.