So much about these last few days before the Olympics is familiar to me. All the training and preparation is done, all the travel plans in place, and you suddenly find yourself in a bit of a lull, waiting for the Games to begin. And that's not just the athletes.

For the journalists too I know it can be a testing time. There are pages to fill and pictures to file, and as that waiting game continues you’ll always find some sensational stories or problems surrounding the host city – especially as the athletes begin to arrive.

We got that in Australia this week, with reports the Athletes Village wasn’t yet ready for their arrival. Just like any new house, the first to arrive will always spot some problems, but there’s no reason to believe it won’t be all ready in time for the Opening Ceremony next Friday.

Think back to any recent Olympics and there’s always been a myriad of problems and issues highlighted by the media. Before London, there were concerns over the tight security, a fear of empty seats, and after a day or two that was all forgotten.

Before Beijing, it was the pollution, or the internet restrictions. I can remember too before Atlanta, in 1996, there were reports of the bus drivers getting lost, even on the way in from the airport, which in many cases turned out to be true.

Atlanta – the mere mention of it stirs up some strange memories for me. It was a time in my life when nothing went to plan, and it’s hard even thinking back because so many of the details are still fuzzy, or else erased from my mind completely. I had to park so much of what happened in Atlanta because that was my way of moving on, not that I didn’t learn a lot from that time.

Slow process

It was a slow process, but I eventually accepted it, locked up so many of those memories, and then threw away the key.

Initially there wasn’t much to fear. A few weeks before the Games I flew to Philadelphia, where I had a training base following on from my time at Villanova, a short distance away. So I travelled out well in advance, but as much as I was comfortable in the environment, I was always on edge at the training track. I never felt truly relaxed or in control of my destiny.

Part of the problem was trying to accept the pressure or expectation I found myself under and instead I was in a constant state of denial. What I know now is that you have to accept these challenges, and work with them, not constantly fight against them. If, as we say, I knew then what I know now there may well have been a totally different outcome.

The plan was to fly down to Atlanta a few days before my heats of the 5,000m, which meant I watched the first week of those Olympics on TV in my apartment in Philadelphia. It was there that the shock and surprise of what Michelle Smith achieved in the swimming pool unfolded, winning three gold medals, plus a bronze, which for an Irish swimmer was completely unexpected – that being an understatement of it all too.

This is definitely one chapter in Irish sport which is clouded with doubt and credibility, rarely mentioned, and much of which has been left unanswered. How was this possible, and in this age of outing athletes we know have cheated the system, will we ever know the truth?

I arrived in Atlanta on the same day that Michelle was posing for photographs with Bill Clinton, a backing, of sorts, by the US president at the time. But I never once met Michelle in Atlanta, or since.

Everyone thought what she achieved in the pool would take the pressure off of me, when actually it probably added to the expectation. After all, I was the world champion, fastest in the world, so all I had to do was turn up and collect the gold medal. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

So, just as Michelle was having her life turned on its head in Atlanta, so too was my life, only in a different way.

I’d my own problems to deal with, and the simplest thing would have been to rip up the script and start all over again, although that’s not an option when you’re in the thick of the Olympics.

Still, I do wonder now if Michelle would like to do the same thing with her life script for 1996.

I wonder as well about where we were both coming from, having being first linked as Olympians in Barcelona in 1992, before taking very separate paths.

Barcelona was one of the first athletes villages set up to be a very communal and interactive place. I recall seeing Michelle there a few times, after causing barely a ripple in the pool, enjoying the social side of the Olympics, along with Erik de Bruin, a discus thrower from the Netherlands, whom she had befriended.

None of us could have imagined then that this Dutch track and field athlete would have such an impact on Irish swimming four years later in Atlanta.

There is always the possibility that different methods and mindset can change an athlete, but what Michelle achieved was so unusual in swimming circles that it was impossible to go unnoticed.

It also makes me wonder why Michelle put that credibility at even greater risk by continuing to swim beyond Atlanta in 1996, allowing herself to be in a position that would totally discredit her Olympic achievements by tampering with a drug test in 1998.

But then beyond the monetary benefits, I can never understand what drives an athlete to cheat, why their best is never good enough, even in their own minds.

All I know is I was so driven as an athlete that I couldn’t accept Atlanta was going to be the end for me. I had to find a way back, to be my best again.

Constant miles

It took time, courage and strength of mind, and there were days when I could just as easily have drifted off, never revisited the heights I knew so well, and just needed to reach one more time.

It meant another four years of constant miles and hours of running, but it was all I had, the drive for the Olympic success which had eluded me in Atlanta. It’s what got me through the roller coaster of 1997, the jubilation of 1998, winning World Cross Country and European Championship gold, the unknown world of returning to competition after the birth of Ciara in 1999, to the silver lining that was my Olympic medal in Sydney.

I’m sure many Irish athletes will travel to Rio this week knowing the ups and downs they have endured to get to the starting line. But to be there is a privilege, and to get a result that gives satisfaction and reflects the journey is something only each individual athlete can know in their heart and soul is worthy of pursuing.