THE Olympic gold medallist Michelle Smith has struck gold in Beijing - in the form of an award from China's biggest sports magazine, whose 1 million readers have selected her as one of the top 10 world athletes of 1996.
The Irish Ambassador to China, Mr Joe Hayes, collected a special gold trophy for Ms Smith yesterday at a ceremony attended by dozens of China's leading coaches and athletes in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
The champion swimmer who brought home three gold medals from Atlanta, came third in the annual, much anticipated poll organised by New Sports Magazine and Chinese Central TV.
The survey determines the best known and most highly regarded world athletes among Chinese sports fans.
This is the first time an Irish athlete has made it into the journal's annual hall of fame list, which was first published in 1989.
Ms Smith received considerable publicity in China for her extraordinary feat in Atlanta. Her photograph was published on the front page of the China Dally when she won her third gold medal.
Her trials and tribulations at the hands of the US media struck a sympathetic chord with Chinese people, whose own athletes were singled out in American press and television coverage of the Olympics for alleged irregularities in gaining.
Chinese newspapers accused American reporters of bias in favour of defeated US swimmers when Ms Smith came first in her medal events.
How ever, the readers of New Sports Magazine showed no bias against US stars. The American runner Michael Johnson came first in the poll, followed by Donovan Bailey of Canada.
After Ms Smith, in descending order of merit, came Deng Yaping of China for table tennis; Michael Jordan of the US for basketball; Steffi Graf of Germany for tennis; Russian swimmer Alexander Popov; Chinese weightlifter Zhan Xugang, and Brazilian footballer Ronaldo.
In accepting the award from the vice chairman of the Chinese, People's Political Consultative Conference, Mr Hayes said the vote "honours a great Irish athlete".