The Most Famous
SWIMMERS from Ireland
This page contains a list of the greatest Irish Swimmers. The pantheon dataset contains 392 Swimmers, 1 of which were born in Ireland. This makes Ireland the birth place of the 42nd most number of Swimmers behind Philippines and South Korea.
Top 1
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Irish Swimmers of all time. This list of famous Irish Swimmers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.
1. Michelle Smith (1969 - )
With an HPI of 29.85, Michelle Smith is the most famous Irish Swimmer. Her biography has been translated into 23 different languages on wikipedia.
Michelle Smith de Bruin (born 16 December 1969 in Rathcoole) is an Irish lawyer and retired Olympic swimmer. She won three gold medals at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, for the 400 m individual medley, 400 m freestyle and 200 m individual medley, and also won the bronze medal for the 200 m butterfly event. Smith's rise to dominance in the 1995 European Championships, followed by her wins in Atlanta at a relatively advanced age for swimmers were marked by allegations of doping, which were never proven. Smith was, however, later banned for four years by FINA, the international swimming federation, for manipulation of an anti-doping sample, by deliberate contamination with alcohol, a decision upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport when Smith appealed. Already superannuated in swimming terms, Smith never returned to competitive swimming and later worked as a barrister, practising under her married name of Michelle de Bruin. Despite the ban for manipulating samples, none of Smith's swimming achievements have been annulled, and she remains Ireland's most successful Olympian.
Pantheon has 1 people classified as swimmers born between 1969 and 1969. Of these 1, 1 (100.00%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living swimmers include Michelle Smith.
