DE BRUIJN AND THE AGONY OF DE FEAT POLICE.

Byline: KAREN CROUSE

This time the feat police have gone too far. They've charged swimmer Inge de Bruijn, whose only known crime is that she is a serial record-setter, with illicit use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Never mind that the feat police have yet to turn up a single shred of evidence with which to convict the Dutch sprinter; the mere fact that her fingerprints are all over seven world-record performances since May is proof enough in their eyes to pronounce her guilty.

Sadly, profiling is rampant in sports today. Athletes who push the envelope of performance beyond what was thought possible come under suspicion automtically. Drug rumors dog them. Innuendo tails them. The feat police give chase.

The celebration of achievement - the essence of sports - now finds itself on trial. In sport's kangaroo court, record-setters are considered guilty even after their drug tests prove their innocence.

We're taking up de Bruijn's case in the name of Studio City's Lenny Krayzelburg and Thousand Oaks' Marion Jones and all the countless kids out there aspiring to athletic greatness. Because if somebody doesn't come to de Bruijn's defense today, the cynics will wrest sports from the dreamers tomorrow.

We tracked de Bruijn down in a hotel in Portland, Ore. Almost two months have passed since the most amazing of her swims - a stunning clocking of 56.69 in the 100-meter butterfly, a 1.19 second improvement over American Jenny Thompson's year-old world record.

The 26-year-old is living out of a suitcase, far from her family and friends in Rotterdam, battling homesickness the 19 hours of the day when she isn't tearing down her muscles and building them back up under the watchful eye of coach Paul Bergen.

Bergen is the reason de Bruijn is still swimming. Serendipity brought her to him in September of 1997. She followed him from Virginia to Oregon in late 1998 when he took the head-coaching job at Tualatin Hills.

``I'm really lucky I met coach Bergen,'' de Bruijn said. ``I put so much confidence in what he says. I've never trained harder in my life.''

De Bruijn didn't know it at first, but in the late 1970s, Bergen oversaw the development of Joan Pennington, a onetime American-record holder in the 100-meter butterfly, and Tracy Caulkins, a 48-time national champion, a four-time world-record holder and arguably the most outstanding female swimmer of any era.

Bergen is a wonderful stroke technician and an unapologetic taskmaster. He calls de Bruijn ``the most explosive female I've ever coached.'' He marvels at her 26-inch vertical jump and admires her elegant armstrokes, though that hasn't stopped him from tinkering with her technique the past few months in an effort to maximize her power and efficiency.

Bergen's disciplined, didactic approach counteracted perfectly the driftlessness de Bruijn, a regular on the European swimming scene, had started to feel as the 1996 Olympics drew near.

She pulled out of the competition in Atlanta after being named to the Dutch team because ``I hadn't been motivated to train,'' she said. ``I wasn't getting myself to the pool. I felt like it wasn't worth it to me to go because I wasn't that focused. I didn't want to embarrass my country.''

Four years after the fact, the feat police have assigned more sinister motives to her withdrawal. They have conjectured that a fear of testing positive for steroids is what kept de Bruijn away.

De Bruijn, who has never failed a drug test, also has heard the rumors that her brother is the husband of 1996 triple Olympic gold medalist Michele Smith, who later tested positive for androstenedione and was banned from swimming for allegedly tampering with a drug sample.

In fact, he is no relation. De Bruijn does have a brother of some interest to the aquatics community; he is a water polo player on the Dutch Olympic team.

De Bruijn would be less than truthful if she said she wasn't bothered by the personal attacks. She finds it curious that American sprinters Thompson, 28, and Dara Torres, 33, recently have set U.S. records in the 100 and 50 freestyles, respectively, without drawing so much as a ripple of suspicion from the feat police.

``In the U.S., people think everything their champions do is awesome,'' de Bruijn said. ``They give their champions nicknames like `Madame Butterfly.' I think it's maybe because I'm not from the U.S. that there is this suspicion. I don't know if it's jealousy or what. I think it's pretty sad.''

De Bruijn said that when Thompson shaved .05-second off Mary T. Meagher's 18-year-old world record in the 100 butterfly last year, de Bruijn saw a clear blue sky where before there had been a ceiling.

``That record looked so far away to me,'' de Bruijn said. ``Jenny Thompson really made a big change in swimming when she broke it. It made me think, 'Wow, if she can break it, maybe I can break it, too.' ''

Thompson planted the seed, de Bruijn bloomed and now the feat police are trying to chop her down. That's what passes for sports these days.

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Inge de Bruijn is just one of the athletes whose incredible accomplishments cast them in a suspicious light.

Special to the Daily News