Swimming: History never repeats, does it?

As Inge de Bruijn touched the wall in the Sydney International Aquatic Centre and turned round to glance up at the giant scoreboard, the voice of Shirley Bassey pronounced over the public address system: "It's all just a little bit of history repeating."

It certainly seemed that way to the cynical element among the 17,000 in attendance.

The hair was the same golden colour. The shoulders were of the same hulking dimension. The margin of victory was of the same stunning magnitude. The name was very nearly the same too, though at her victory press conference the Dutchwoman who destroyed the opposition and her own world record in the 100m butterfly final was at pains to point out the disparity.

"Our names are different," de Bruijn said, when the inevitable question was raised of the uncanny parallels between her emergence as the likely women's swimmer of the Sydney Olympic Games and that of Michelle de Bruin - or Michelle Smith, as she still was at the time - in Atlanta four years ago.

"They are similar, yes, which is the thing I have to deal with. But we're not family. I think there's no comparison with her and me at all."

The facts would suggest otherwise. Inge de Bruijn has surged from also-swam to untouchable in record time. A year ago she was just another promising European swimmer.

Since then, at the age of 27, a pensionable age for an international swimmer, she has smashed nine world records and completed the first leg of an Olympic treble in stunning fashion.

At the 50m turn on Saturday, de Bruijn had the American Jenny Thompson on her tail, a mere 0.13s behind. By the finish, having surged through the return stretch of water with the relentless power of a natural amphibian heading for its lunch, she was more than a body-length clear of Martina Moravcova, winner of the consolation race within the race.

The gold medal-winning margin was 1.36s, a mile in sprint swimming terms, and the time 56.61s, the Dutchwoman's third major revision of the 18-year-old world record which Thompson broke last year.

Michelle de Bruin did much the same four years ago, en route to three Olympic golds.

That she had finished 26th in the 400m individual medley at the Barcelona Olympics raised not so much the suspicion as the conviction that her quantum leap had been taken with the help of something more powerful than epo - evening primrose oil, that is.

Her unprecedented improvement had, after all, been made with the guidance of Erik de Bruin, her future husband and international discus thrower who was banned for drug taking in 1991.

She was banned too, in 1998, when a urine sample she was deemed to have adulterated was found to contain an alcohol level that would kill a human being. There was apparently, as one Irish song goes, whiskey in the jar.

Inge de Bruijn placed her hand on her heart as she tearfully sang the Dutch national anthem at her medal ceremony yesterday.

In the interview room inquisition that followed, she was not quite asked to swear that she was no cheat in the Michelle de Bruin mould - as Susie O'Neill, the Australian who finished 2.66s behind her in seventh place, openly inferred earlier this year by describing the Dutch swimmer's drastically improved performances as "pretty suss" - but she defended her honour with strident conviction.

"You know I've worked very, very hard," de Bruijn said, "and if you work hard and get world records they just want to chop your head off. If you're on top of the world they just automatically point the finger.

"It shouldn't be that way. But right now I'm above all those accusations.

"It really doesn't matter to me any more, because I've got a gold medal. No one can ever take that away."

Michelle de Bruin would testify to that. The three golds she won at the last Olympics remain on display in her Kilkenny home.

Inge de Bruijn, a member of the PSV Eindhoven swimming club, withdrew from the Dutch team for those Games in Atlanta because she was swimming so poorly. She even quit the sport for a year.

The key to her transformation from Olympic quitter to Olympic champion, she insisted, was "variation," pointing to to the diverse training regime she adopted, including rope climbing and taebo, a cross between taekwondo and Thai kick-boxing - when she linked up with the American coach Paul Bergen two years ago.

Her media grilling over, her gold medal hung around her neck, de Bruijn departed for her 14th drug test of the year. The 13 analysed so far have been clean.

Those of us remaining were left wondering whether swimming had, after all, been drained of its chemical problem - and what would have become of Michelle de Bruin if only she had done rope-climbing and taebo.

- INDEPENDENT