Swim Ireland CEO Sarah Keane insists that she has no doubts whatsoever that Shane Ryan was a clean athlete throughout the entirety of his time as an Irish Olympian.
Ryan, who retired from competitive swimming in early October, having represented Ireland at the 2016, 2020 and 2024 Olympic Games, sent shockwaves through Irish swimming when he announced that he would join the controversial Enhanced Games.
The Enhanced Games will permit athletes to take banned performance-enhancing drugs under medical supervision.
The first Enhanced Games is due to take place in May 2026 at a purpose-built complex in Las Vegas. The complex will have a four-lane 50-metre pool, a six-lane sprint track, and a weightlifting stage.
Speaking to Inside Sport on RTÉ Radio 1, Keane admitted that she was relieved Ryan was no longer involved with Irish Swimming when he made the announcement, but reiterated that she had no concerns about his testing during his time under the Irish flag.
"From our perspective, I think it was great to see him at least retire before he made that announcement," she said.
"I don't know when exactly he made the decision.
"It's obviously very disappointing in terms of that career choice from our perspective, but he's 30 years of age, he's not living in this country and he's making his decisions around his life.
"From my perspective and those of a lot of people around Irish sport, we believe hugely in clean sport regards of what stage of your life or career you're in.
"Shane spoke about clean sport and from an Olympic perspective and we believe he was always clean during that time."
Keane paid tribute to Ryan and all he had done for Irish Swimming during his time as an Olympian and she credited him with helping to change the mindset among his contemporaries.
"When he first came to Ireland, Shane brought something that I think Irish sports, certainly in swimming, was lacking," she said. "He brought belief.
"He brought her belief in himself, a belief in in what could be done regardless of where you are from and that was really instrumental I think in helping start to bring build belief in Irish swimming and Irish swimmers."
Ryan has credited the funding on offer in the Enhanced Games as one of his big motivators in making the decision to join the new competition.
Each event will have a total prize purse of $500,000 (€432,000), with $250,000 (€216,000) awarded to the winner. There'll also be $1m (€864,000) on offer for competitors who break world records in the 100m sprint on the track and 50m freestyle in the pool.
"Financially, I'm making over six figures for nine months and then potentially making over $600,000 (€517,000) when it comes down the line," he said.
"I was on €18,000 for a number of years and trying to compete and train. Trying to have a job doing that, especially with swimming, is very, very difficult."
Keane admitted that the gulf between the funding available is a concern and may be something that Olympic bodies will have to look at in the longer term to make competitions like the Enhanced Games less tempting.
"I think there's other things around this," she said. "There's lots of careers you could take, I'm paid less as a sports administrator then I would be a lawyer and this topic of money comes into it a lot.
"People choose careers based hopefully on passion and other opportunities as well as money and I think our athletes don't pick their sport because of the money.
"But we do need to look at the system from a wider perspective."
