Finding a light in the darkness

A number of people have written to this column in tones redolent of the indecisive Dane. Apparently this columnist was once quite the Yorick, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. That was then, this is now. Lately he is naught but a miserable, old, whinging moanie minnie.

"Where be your gibes now?" they ask, "your gambols, your songs, your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar?"

They are speaking, of course, about the recycled jokes, stolen thoughts and lame one-liners which fill out this space on the 43 Mondays in the year when Yorick hasn't a thing to say. Be assured, though, that for all its frippery, this column gets a better class of correspondent than most of it's ilk and rest easy also, my gambols are intact (thanks for asking) but, but, god's bodikins man, can't you see that these are dark, dark, times?

It is three years this summer since Dublin won an All-Ireland, the Chinese have poisoned the pool, the IASA still hasn't disbanded, Leeds United are drowning and Alan Partridge is about to be replaced in the RTE radio schedules by the more intentional hilarity of Des Cahill. However, we shall bow to the wishes of those nice people who took the trouble to write. We shall celebrate a great swimmer this week.

Aleksander Popov, from a little town in the Ural mountains, lost a swimming race in Perth last week, the first time this has occurred in a race of any significance in seven years. To those of us who admire him, it was touching evidence that he is a mortal engine after all.

Who knew? Back in 1996 in Atlanta, somewhere between Michelle's muscles and Sonia's bowels, there took place one of the great duels of modern sport; a showdown which defined the possibilities of swimming as a sport. Popov, the fastest man in the pool ever, against Gary Hall Junior, the brash scion of one of America's bestknown families.

They got out all the Cold War cliches and somehow they fitted pretty nicely. Popov read Tolstoy, talked in riddles and focussed like a dose of laser treatment. Hall played air guitar, drove fast cars and was the son of the greatest American male swimmer never to win a gold, Gary Hall Senior. "They seem to be losers," said Popov with a quiet frown. Hall, who is not without charm himself and who has befriended many Irish swimmers, describes Popov as the definition of shallow. Coming from a man who describes himself as `Gary Hall Jnr, Personality Extraordinaire' this could be a compliment.

They asked Popov about his favourite movie stars. "That is an American question," he smiled. "They should dream about me. I am reality, they are not." Shallow or what?

Gary Hall got to know that reality. Popov retained his 50 metre and 100 metre freestyle crowns amidst scenes of simple-minded partisanship not seen anywhere since Sly was making Rocky movies. To watch him was to understand some of the reasons why swimming can take an almost mystical hold on the imagination. "You share the same spirit as the water," says Popov.

He still has the beautiful form in the water that Mark Spitz noticed when he first saw him swim, he retains the ease which prompted his genius coach, Gennadi Touretski, to turn Popov from a backstroker to a freestyler when he came to him at the age of 18. Spitz worked on Popov's mind. Touretski worked on his body. They produced not a machine, but a man with a wonderfully-refreshing appreciation of the ethics of sport, a man who goes to swim with the dolphins off the Gold Coast in Australia, a man who says things like: "Mother nature gives everyone their own shape, their own opportunities and possibilities" and doesn't follow it up by suggesting that drugs are science's way of getting even with Mother Nature.

Mother Nature bestowed on Popov a body made for swimming perfection, six feet six inches of lean muscle, and a temperament designed to handle it all. There is a story about him getting a lift him one night in Canberra from an Australian swimmer and when the seat belts were fastened, Popov surprised the Aussie by asking him if he smoked. "No" spluttered the Australian. "Well I shall," said Popov and chain smoked all the way to his front door.

He doesn't just smoke, he drinks the sort of vodka that burns your throat and shifts the furniture in your head. In Australia, they say Popov can drink any Australian under the table. They don't say it disapprovingly.

He is not just the greatest swimmer, but the greatest technician, the greatest personality, the greatest vodka drinker in the sport today. He can swim 50 metres in 28 seconds just using his feet. This column can't walk that fast just using his feet. He is a PhD student in sports science and he has the good looks of a matinee idol. He is a breath of fresh air in the chlorine-scented chambers of suspicion and mistrust. He put a lot of shady people in their place in Seville last summer when he announced the launch of another video detailing his training methods and routines.

"I don't have to go around in secret, I don't have to train in any secret way which makes everybody think I am on drugs. I am happy for anybody to learn what they can from what I do."

When he swam in Perth last week, he was hailed as a hero of the pool, the most honest and encouraging figure in swimming today, a man who stands up for the ethics of sport.

He has lived in Australia, in Canberra, for half a decade now and the welcome was partly partisan. Partly too, though, the applause was fuelled by an appreciation of what Popov has come through. When he stretches himself on the poolside a scar is visible, running from underneath his navel to the start of his ribcage, a jagged memorial to the outcome of a dispute he had with a Moscow watermelon vendor just four weeks after the Atlanta Olympics ended.

The knife damaged his kidney and his lung and necessitated a three-hour emergency operation in a Moscow city hospital plus a convalescence of a couple of months. He came back to the pool though, and he won a record 15th European gold in Seville last summer.

In Perth, he won once and was beaten once, but behaved every inch the hero in both circumstances. Encouragingly, he spoke of Sydney and how much he is looking forward to it.

Popov and the fact that there has never been a whiff of drugs from him is one reason to still celebrate swimming. His disciple (in some habits anyway) Donncha Redmond, is another. Donncha's campaign to bring sponsors' money to the business of drug testing and drug research continues apace on Donncha's WEBSWIM site on the net.

Visit WWW.WEBSWIM.COM today. Don't just go and look, fill out Donncha's survey, read the information. Let's see if any multi-national has guts enough to stand up for a troubled sport. It'll take more then a hero like Popov to make parents know that it's safe to send their kids back into the pool.