Michelle Smith ninth in the preliminary swims with only the top eight advancing. Smith did not submit her qualifying time for the 400m freestyle event before the 5 July deadline but did so two days later with the Irish Olympic officials insisting they had been given permission to submit the qualifying time after the deadline. Smith applied for the event after she had arrived in Atlanta. After Smith qualified at the expense of Evans, the US Swimming Federation, supported by the German and Netherlands swimming teams, challenged a decision to allow Smith to compete but were unsuccessful. At a later conference, Evans
Michelle Remembers "The Mail on Sunday" exposed further inconsistencies in Smith’s allegations. "The Mail on Sunday" conducted a two-week investigation into the claims made in "Michelle Remembers" and found that other than Pazder and Smith, the people they interviewed described the events in "Michelle Remembers" as "the hysterical ravings of an uncontrolled imagination". In an interview with Jack Proby, Proby cited (as an example) "three specific points where … Michelle lied" in "Michelle Remembers". Proby indicated that although he decided not to sue, he did file a Notice of Intent to sue against the book's publisher should they go beyond the literary