All is quiet on New Year's Eve. It is 10.00am. The town is shaking the sleep from its eyes and the odd pencil of smoke snakes up through the mist from a group of chimneys on the hillside by the pool. The elite group of New Ross swimmers are winding down their routines, preparing themselves to dovetail with regular town life. Their eyes are red-rimmed, their hair dripping wet. They take their chlorine scent with them as they step into the car park in a rowdy gaggle.
It will be half an hour before Adrian O'Connor and younger brother Hugh climb out of the water where they have been swimming since 9.30. Like obedient spaniels, they are taking commands from the photographer who has ordered them back into the water from the changing rooms. The half hour lengthens to an hour before the brothers satisfy the photographer's artistic needs with tumble turns and exaggerated diving starts. At 11.35, they pop up from under the surface and with frightening ease flip on to the bank in one silvery movement. Three miles of drills completed, the covers are draped over the pool and their swimming for the 1997 year comes to an end. Hugh, at 19, is breezy and unphased. He has been thrown in at the deep end. His inclusion for the World Championships in Perth, Australia, in a week's time has not overwhelmed him. The young backstroker has been tossed a World Championship place at short notice and a grim January has brightened up. The greatest expectations now are that he treads water. Upbeat about the prospect of the Australian summer sun, that achingly attractive 50metre outdoor pool and the best swimmers in the world, he and his brother smile self-consciously at the drama and fuss of the picture session. What would the town folk think of the pomp?
Drafted into the four-man Irish squad after Michelle de Bruin pulled out just before Christmas because of injury, he assumes an adolescent nonchalance. Nothing in this world is too much bother. Alexander Popov is no bother. Olympic gold medallists are no bother. Adjusting to the outdoor pool doesn't bother him. The heat, the time difference, the pressure. None of it is any bother. Irish swimming's pin-up boy and emerging talent sprawls himself across the chair like a wet towel. Hugh, along with two other teenage swimmers, Lee Kelleher and Chantal Gibney, represent Ireland's future.
When he was selected before Kelleher and Gibney, the ripples began. Everyone had a point of view. Three outstanding junior swimmers. One from Cork, one from Dublin, one from New Ross, and one place available. National coach Ger Doyle would have preferred to bring all three to Australia, but shoestring budgets don't allow for such extravagance. Irish juniors are blooded in places like Sheffield and Glasgow. Pursefriendly cities close to home. O'Connor was chosen and the ripples from Cork and Dublin continue to lap around the Wexford club. The hullabaloo? What hulabaloo?
"None of that stuff bothers me. Not at all," says Hugh. "I'll just go and swim. I was told that I'm going to Australia and that's what I'll do. The Sydney Olympics are my long-term goal, but to be honest I'm not sure what to expect in Perth. I only found out I was going last week, a day or so before Christmas. I won't set goals in terms of times, but I try for a personal best every time I get in the pool."
At 25, Adrian is more the voice of reason, more reflective and seasoned. He has memorised his schedule in Perth - the warm-up swim on the first day in the 200m freestyle, the 200m backstroke on the third day and the 100m backstroke on the seventh day. Hugh has a sketchy outline of the days in which he competes. He knows that it's the 100m and 200m backstroke. Same as his brother.
With sisters Grania, Paula and Naiomh, the O'Connor family have contributed generously to the Irish swimming cause over the years. Eight children and five international swimmers. Perth, though, will be only the second time that two brothers have travelled as part of an Irish team to a major international event. Along with Nick O'Hare and Colin Louth, the O'Connors make up half the squad.
The likelihood, too, is that they will compete against each other, as they did at the European Championships in Seville last August. Adrian travels with the best times, but Hugh is snapping at his heels. With nine individual junior records this season, the younger brother beat his older sibling when they met in the 200m backstroke in Spain. In the process, Hugh took close to a two-second bite out of his junior record.
In reality that is what the Irish team will look for in Australia - personal bests and national records. With de Bruin absent, Irish swimming will re-adjust to pre-Atlanta horizons. There is little chance of getting to a B final, no chance of an A final. The brothers' times don't add up to getting further than the heats.
"My best time would be two and a half seconds behind the best swimmer in the 100m backstroke. I've 57.4. They'd be going 55.0, I'd say," says Adrian. "I think the B finals are going to be very hard to make. A couple of years ago maybe, but these days A and B finals are all around the same time. I'd have to do about 56 seconds, knock off a second, to get a B final. I'll aim for that."
In terms of public interest, it is difficult to assess what de Bruin has done for Irish swimming. Before her withdrawal there was a clamour from all of the major newspapers in this country for press accreditation and accommodation for the duration of the World Championships. On her withdrawal after poor swims in France, every media outlet cancelled their plans to travel to Perth. Who is interested in junior records, Irish records or B finals after the Olympic medals and controversy that de Bruin has generated over the last 18 months?
"She's certainly made Ireland stand out alright," Hugh says, before trailing off to let his brother continue. "I think that Michelle not going will allow me to be a bit more relaxed, although it's never really bothered me before. She's always stood on her own two feet. She looks after herself. It won't make that huge a difference, but maybe it will be more relaxed, maybe less will be expected of us."
Around New Ross the brothers are feted. A small town whose stable news diet revolves around Oulart-the-Ballagh, Buffers Alley and the county hurling team, swimming has carved a reasonable niche. With Paul McCarthy also part of the New Ross club, the town houses three of the country's top swimmers. There is an irresistible pride in that. In the past, Dublin has been perceived as the font of all swimming talent. The national media seldom give exposure to those outside the capital. Dublin swimmers were sometimes pushed forward when there were others who had achieved more.
"There is a pride in representing the club and being from New Ross," says Hugh. "Four or five years ago, 70 per cent of the team was from Dublin. It's the other way around now. It bothers me that when a Dublin swimmer does anything it gets publicity. It's unbelievable. You notice it alright - if you are not from Dublin."
Occasionally the local papers take up the cudgel for the swimmers. When Adrian came third this year in a short-course race in Sheffield at the British championships, he was asked to stay off the rostrum at the medal ceremony. It was normal procedure. All of the non-British swimmers understood that if they came in the first three in any event, they would not receive a medal. A local paper got hold of the story and put it through the mangle. Irish Swimmer snubbed at British Championships ran the dramatic narrative. It was the first time that coach Ger Doyle was forced to complain to a newspaper. "Terrible," says Adrian.
Stung by articles in the Irish Independent which suggested that he does not perform under pressure, Adrian is non-commital about what he can produce in Perth. The criticism hurts, but he has been around for long enough to let it break around him. He has no cause to feel that there is a better swimmer in Ireland and there is no reason to doubt him.
That Hugh is in the same events has helped Adrian. The sibling rivalry is alive, but contained. Although they have an easy relationship, they will fight tooth and nail for better times. But each takes satisfaction from the other brother's success.
"Adrian was a swimmer I would look to when I was young," says Hugh. "It's been helpful with the training. If you didn't feel like going and you knew he was going, you'd go. The training is not the most exciting thing in the world. But I like the competition."
Doyle remembers Adrian as a child around the pool, Hugh in nappies and a raft of other O'Connors about the pool deck. He knows the long shadows that can be cast over a swimmer's enthusiasm when they return to New Ross from an Australian summer. The 25-metre pool becomes a hole in the ground. The cold chills the bones in quick time.
He knows, too, that occasionally his swimmers come out of the shorter pool dizzy from the volume of turns they have to do during a session. They occasionally lose their bearings in the backstroke with a blue sky rather than a roof to follow when they swim in outdoor championships. They occasionally misjudge the length of the 50-metre pool and, used to the shorter pool, lose a little from the extra push they get on each turn.
Hugh is in Australia to drink on the experience and look to the future. The World Championships should generate excitement, nurture an edge. Adrian, perhaps, is in one of his final championships. As his masters degree in science at Waterford comes to an end this summer, his non-swimming career will take priority. He does not know where it will bring him. "I can't hang around New Ross. There is nothing for me here. I'll try to keep swimming, but it can't be guaranteed," he says.
One O'Connor moving on. Another stepping in. The tradition lives on.
