The people of Ireland will be crying with you tonight

The people of Ireland will be crying with you tonight."Expectation was soaring, too. Smith's first language is Gaelic and midway through her press conference the English questions and answers were suddenly interrupted by the Irish native tongue The translation was "Congratulations. "I knew she couldn't come back at me." At the finish, Smith turned to the scoreboard, waved briefly in triumph and then burst into tears that did not stop flowing for a good half-hour.She was not alone. Smith's margin of victory was enormous at this level, nearly three seconds"I thought I would win when I passed Krisztina," she said. Could she sustain it over the the final two lengths? She overwhelmed Egerszegi, sweeping past her with such force the surprised champion dropped back to third. Her ambition proved to be within her range because the Hungarian had opened a gap of only 1.69sec before Smith could allow her superiority in the breast and freestyle strokes to tell.Slowly, painfully, she edged nearer and at the 300m mark she had whittled down the lead to just over half a second. "I must be the most tested athlete in Ireland."She was tested in the water by one of swimming's greats, Krisztina Egerszegi, who had four gold medals coming into Atlanta and who appeared set for another when she clocked the fastest time in the heats."I knew I had to be within two and a half seconds of Krisztina after the backstroke leg," Smith, who had led after the butterfly, said.

"I've been tested three times in training already this year," she said a month before the Olympics. Add that to the fact that de Bruin was banned for taking anabolic steroids in 1993 and eyebrows might to have hit the roof.Smith's achievement has been taken at face value, however. "My husband has encouraged me to do weight-training and to change the way I work for events."Having said that, if a Chinese woman had made the fantastic progress that Smith has achieved, the sport of swimming would be awash with scepticism that chemical as well physical work had something to do with it. Allying training schedules used by track and field athletes to the pool, she transformed her times "I'm stronger, leaner and fitter," she said.

"It hasn't been an explosion from nowhere," she said, referring to the steady if spectacular progress since 1994. "It's something I've been working at for three and a half years."The key to Ireland's first gold in the pool came after the last Olympics when Smith, who hails from Rathcoole, a village 10 miles from Dublin, left her homeland in pursuit of a full-sized 50m pool and near full-time training at the University of Houston, Texas.There she met her husband to be, Erik de Bruin, a Dutch Olympic discus thrower, and her life domestically and professionally was changed. Instead she knocked a staggering 19 seconds off her time four years ago.Where had she come from? Smith, red haired and pink faced from the effort, was mildly irritated by the question. Maybe it has something to do with St Patrick driving the snakes into the sea, but hitherto the Emerald Isle had taken to the water like concrete. Which is why mouths dropped when Michelle Smith not only got a medal in the women's 400 metres individual medley but took the gold. Her devastating burst over the final freestyle 100m had the world, never mind the Irish, rubbing their eyes in disbelief. Smith, after all, could finish only 26th in the Barcelona Games and at the age of 26 she ought to have been settling in to the comfortable ranks of the also-swams she had lived in for most of her life. William Hill's offers of 12-1 about two medals and 7-1 about three are worth a small interest.FIRST TEST (Lord's, Thursday): Best prices: 5-4 draw (Coral), 11-5 Pakistan (Coral), 5-2 England (Ladbrokes).

Series: 9-5 draw (Hills), 7-4 England (Hills), 7-4 Pakistan (Coral).TRACK AND FIELD MEDALS (Hills): No medals, 80-1; 1, 33-1; 2, 12-1; 3, 7-1; 4, 11-2; 5, 9-2; 6, 9-2; 7, 5-1; 8, 7-1; 9, 10-1; 10, 14-1; 11, 20- 1; 12, 33-1; 13, 66-1; 14, 100-1; 15, 150-1.. They expect to do well in some sports in Ireland but the swimming pool, forget it. Jonathan Edwards may be guaranteed a medal of some description, but it is hard to see where many more may come from. Few events have been priced up as yet, but the list on the 100 metres, with Linford Christie at a wholly unrealistic 10-1, gives an indication of what is in store.An alternative is to back the British to do poorly, and the prices about the number of track and field medals which will return from the States are worth a second look. England can win the Test (5-2, Ladbrokes) and the series (7-4, also Ladbrokes).The prohibition on backing the Brits will be back in place when the track and field events get underway in Atlanta. Backing England is rarely a value option whatever the sport, but this may be the exception to prove the rule. For any serious punters, though, form must be the key consideration, and while England appear to have found a useful blend of flair and resilience, Pakistan have looked anything but a top international side in their recent warm-up matches.After a comprehensive defeat by Warwickshire, Pakistan are struggling to avoid another at Kent, which is hardly the sort of performance to prompt a bet, either for the match or series, at such cramped odds.