POOLSIDE moments. Michelle Smith, face wreathed in happiness and rivulets of water streaming down her body, fell into the arms of her husband and conch Erik de Bruin. "That's the first", said Erik. "That's the first."
The first: the first woman to win an Olympic medal of any hue for Ireland; the first Irish person to, win a swimming medal of any type; the first Irish person to reach an Olympic swimming final. The first Irish success of the Atlanta games on the first day of action. The first victory of a promise laden week.
De Bruin, a former Dutch discus thrower who played such a role in piloting this success, was the first to greet Ireland's newest Olympic champion. ,Then the world pressed in.
Congratulations flowed from the President, Mrs Robinson; from the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, and from "all the party leaders. Before that, Michelle Smith had already felt the crush of an embrace from the Minister of State for Sport, Mr Bernard Allen.
The Olympic champion, from Rathcoole, Co Dublin, will instantly become a unique and luminous role model for women in sport in Ireland. The rewards will be more tangible, too. Her commercial portfolio, "with a high, ground breaking profile here and in the Netherlands, will burgeon also.
For the present, however, those duties and that reward are secondary as Smith prepares for another assault on gold tonight. Having made a brief appearance at an Irish Olympics party, on Saturday night, Smith spent yesterday resting and training lightly for today's freestyle, heat and final.
But the other Irish in Atlanta celebrated long and hard and, when the moment eventually subsided, savoured the realisation that more opportunities, beckoned. The party could last for a week.
Smith will start as favourite for tonight's 400 metres freestyle event and has strong cards to play, finishing the week in the two events in which she is reigning European champion.
This astonishing 26 year old is reaching her peak when most swimmers are hanging up their goggles. Swimming in her third Olympic Games, the woman who finished 26th in the 400 metres individual medley in Barcelona devastated world class competition on Saturday night. Sporting redemption has seldom, come so late, so surprisingly, so sweetly.
The scale of Smith's achievement almost defies belief. When the going got tough, Smith pulled out the greatest swim of her life, knocking over three seconds off her own personal best time, improving on her Barcelona time of four years ago by some 20 seconds and submitting the eighth fastest time ever.
The novelty other success is best measured by the fact that the average age of the rest of the swimmers was 19 1/2. "I train hard and I train smart", she said afterwards to a stunned international media assembly. Higher, faster, stronger, harder, smarter - the motto of what will be the Smith Olympics.