The Irish records of Michelle de Bruin will remain on the record books despite the efforts of Swim Ireland to have them removed from their revised record lists.

The threat of legal action by the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games triple gold medallist has forced Swim Ireland to do a complete U-turn on the issue. They have done so on the basis of their own legal advice. The change of policy represents a resounding victory for the former champion, who had immediately threatened Swim Ireland with litigation when their plans were announced on July 16th of this year.

"We are delighted that Swim Ireland saw fit to deal with the matter in the way they did and not pursue what would have been fruitless litigation," said Peter Lennon, solicitor for De Bruin yesterday.

De Bruin was banned for four years from the sport, effectively ending her swimming career, when she was found guilty of tampering with a urine sample in her home in Kilkenny in January 1998. She then lost a final appeal against the ban in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne earlier this year.

It was after the appeal hearing that Swim Ireland decided to draw up a new list of record holders and invited Irish swimmers to send in their times. Stating that the organisation wanted "to ensure the integrity of all its swimming records," they set out a list of guidelines whereby De Bruin's records would effectively be excluded.

Rule 11 of the new guidelines stated: "Applications for Swim Ireland records will not be accepted where the applicants are swimmers who have been or are banned/suspended from swimming by FINA or Swim Ireland for reasons which call into question the integrity of the competitive performances or times set by that swimmer either in the present or the past".

Furthermore it was stated that "any record previously ratified will be revoked and the Swim Ireland record certificate cancelled, if at any time following ratification of the record the swimmer is subject to a ban or suspension by FINA for reasons which call into question the integrity of the swimmer's competitive performances".

Clearly Swim Ireland's strategy was ill thought out as they yesterday admitted that there would be absolutely no revision of the record books. The most recent edition of the Swim Ireland handbook publishes all of De Bruin's 26 individual records.

"There is nothing we can do. Disappointment one way or the other does not come into it," said honorary secretary Pat Donovan. "Michelle did break those records. We have no proof of the fact that she broke those records illegally.

"We probably wouldn't have won a case in court, but we wouldn't have wanted to go down that road anyway. We thought we had sorted it out, but unfortunately we hadn't. It's tough on young swimmers coming up and I would suspect that there are records there that might now never be broken," said Donovan.

The change of policy represents a disappointing climb-down for Swim Ireland, who urged other sports to follow their example in dealing harshly with athletes who have been banned for doping offences. De Bruin's transgression was considered a doping offence by the international governing body FINA.

"We are disappointed, but we have to get on with it. Our hands were tied. We weren't trying to get into a long legal battle with Michelle de Bruin," said Swim Ireland PRO Claire Mulholland.

The stand against De Bruin was seen as a new body flexing its muscles and hoping for a positive beginning after taking over from the old Irish Amateur Swimming Association (IASA) which was discredited by a number of child sexual abuse scandals which prompted Government intervention. In essence, officials have admitted it was an effort to claim the moral high ground and send out a message to young swimmers that they could, within the rules, aspire to holding Irish records.

That is now improbable in a number of events. De Bruin holds every individual Irish women's record outside the breaststroke with the exception of three times. The short course 50 metres freestyle is held by Trojan's Chantal Gibney and the 1,500 metres long-course record, set in 1982, is still held by Carol Ann Heavey, while Niamh O'Connor holds the short-course 50 metres backstroke record.

Part of Swim Ireland's thinking comes from the fact that neither the European body LEN nor FINA decided to take away De Bruin's records and therefore there was no precedent at international level. They also have no way of proving that any of the record times were set in an illegal manner.

As stated the reversal is largely due to Swim Ireland's fear of further expensive court cases. The IASA, which is moribund but still in existence for legal reasons, faces a raft of litigation from the victims of jailed paedophile coach Derry O'Rourke and George Gibney, both of whom were former Olympic coaches to the Irish swimming team.

It was stated earlier this year that the swimming body faces 12 cases from victims, with more in the pipeline. Other estimates put the number at 22 outstanding cases.