Being an Irish swimmer and a world champion is possible
Despite continuing to base herself in her native Sligo, teenager Mona McSharry insists she can match with the big nations in the pool
MONA McSHARRY’S life as a swimmer had an inauspicious start. On a family holiday in Austria, she fell into a lake. Not being able to swim, a bit of panic ensued. ‘People always ask me about that. I was only five at the time, so I don’t really remember it. But yeah, I fell into a lake. It was quite deep. I had to be fished out. My parents thought there and then that it was about time I learnt how to swim,’ she laughs.
McSharry grew up in the pretty Sligo village of Grange, nestled in the shadow of Ben Bulben. The Atlantic was just a short stroll from her house, and she learnt initially off Streedagh Strand. By the time she was eight, she had enough interest in swimming to join the Marlins Swim Club in nearby Ballyshannon.
Over the past 11 years, she has got to know every corner and contour of the stretch of road between Grange and Ballyshannon. From the early mornings, when her mother Viola would take her training before school to last Wednesday evening, when she was back on the N15 after putting down another day in the pool, ahead of this week’s European Short Course Championships in Glasgow.
It has been a frustrating year for the swimmer, who turned 19 in August. Twelve months ago, at the National Short Course Championships in Lisburn, she franked the exceptional talent that saw her become a world junior champion in 2017 by setting six Irish records. That included breaking Michelle Smith’s 100m freestyle record that had stood for 23 years as she set two new marks on the same afternoon. However, a few weeks later, she was struck down by glandular fever. It kept her out of the pool for two months. She missed the national trials in April and therefore, the World Championships during the summer.
‘I honestly just want to get in the pool because it hasn’t been a great year for me, it was a bit of a down year after last year. When I got ill, I wasn’t able to train for eight weeks and not being able to train for that long is not ideal for any athlete,’ McSharry explains.
The plan was that this year was always going to be relatively quiet for the young star. She completed her Leaving Certificate in June and recently agreed to go to the University of Tennessee next September on a swimming scholarship. ‘I visited the college last year and it just felt like home,’ she says.
She hopes to join the campus as an Olympian. Everything has been geared towards Tokyo. After finishing her Leaving Cert, she decided to take the year out in an effort to give herself every chance of qualifying. Despite entreaties from Swim Ireland to join the national programme at Abbotstown, she has remained at home, training in the Ballyshannon pool with her long-time coach Grace Meade and surrounded by her small team.
‘A pool is a pool, at the end of the day,’ McSharry points out. ‘It is down to the determination and dedication of the athlete. I wanted to stay in the home programme, it is where I felt most comfortable. And I don’t think I am missing out on anything by not being up in Abbotstown. The only thing missing is the 50m pool, but I go up to Magherafelt to do my 50m training.’
It is quite a boost to the small Marlins club to have a special talent like McSharry.
There has been a pool in the Donegal town since the early 1970s and, to all intents and purposes, it is a typical provincial swimming pool that you find in plenty of towns around the country.It’s not supposed to harness world champion swimmers. But they have stumbled across a gem in McSharry. However, she wasn’t always a superstar. ‘When she started out, she didn’t stand out too much,’ Meade recalls. ‘But what Mona possesses is a determination and work ethic, and this competitive streak, that she wants to be the best she can be.’ Having McSharry around the pool is an inspiration to the local young kids. ‘They see what she has achieved from here, and she does some coaching here. The younger kids have someone to look up to,’ her coach explains.
Meade reckons she began to see something special in McSharry when she was around 12 or 13.
‘She won a few events for the club, had that bite of success and she wanted more. And she was prepared to do whatever she had to do to be the best she could.’
Having won a few national competitions, McSharry was invited to Winnipeg for the Canadian National championships with the Irish junior squad.
‘That was a big deal for me,’ she remembers. ‘I was 13 and it was the first time competing internationally for Ireland. It was my first time travelling aboard without my parents, and it got me used to the idea of going abroad and competing for Ireland. It was a great experience.’
From that point, her development soared. Even though it was never in her plans, or her coach’s, McSharry only just missed out on the qualification mark for the Rio Olympics at the age of 16.
‘I hadn’t thought about Rio because Mona was quite young at the time, but she almost qualified,’ Meade states. ‘That tells you everything you need to know about her competitive nature.’
McSharry believes that swimming
‘ONCE YOU ARE ON THE STARTING BLOCK IT DOESN’T MATTER WHERE YOU’RE FROM’
has simply given her an outlet for that competitiveness.
‘I think I am just competitive in anything I do, whether it is playing a board game or in the pool, and just happen to have an outlet because I’m good at swimming. It wasn’t like I was a superstar when I first learnt to swim, but I was competitive and determined to be the best.’
That competitive spirit came to the fore in her remarkable summer of 2017. After winning gold medals in the 50m and 100m breaststroke in the European Junior Championships and a silver in the 200m, she went to Indianapolis that August for the World Junior Championships. The target was to reach the 100m final. She ended up winning gold, in a new Irish record of 1:07.1.
‘That was an amazing summer. To go from the European juniors to the world juniors and win a gold medal. I couldn’t believe it.
‘It felt like a dream. You are not supposed to win gold medals in the world juniors when you swim for Ireland. It is usually about the bigger nations, they are the ones that always win the medals,’ McSharry observes.
‘Winning that gold showed me that it doesn’t matter where you come from, doesn’t matter who you are. If you get yourself on the starting block, it doesn’t matter if you are in lane one or eight, you have a chance of winning. That is something myself and my coach always say.
‘Our philosophy is to progress through the stages. Go from the heats and don’t think of anything but progressing from the heats. And then think of the semi-final. But once you are in the final, once you are standing on that starting block, anything can happen.’
It’s the same philosophy she will bring to Glasgow this week, think of nothing but the next race. No distractions. Of course, that can be tough in the rarefied world of toplevel swimming.
At the elite level of the sport, oneupmanship and psychological trickery are commonplace in the call room. Caroline Currid, also a native of Grange, is now part of McSharry’s team. The sports psychologist, renowned for her work with Limerick hurlers last year and previously the footballers of Dublin and Tyrone, has been helping McSharry to switch off from what can be a suffocating atmosphere before big races.
‘It can be overwhelming. The call room can be an intimidating environment, especially when you are a younger athlete and you are going up against older, more experienced athletes, number one or two seeds, who you have seen winning medals at major championships,’ she explains.
‘The best way is just not to pay attention as to who else in the call room. Don’t pay attention to who is beside you. Music is my way of switching off from the outside world. I just put on shuffle, focus on my own routine and what I have to do. Don’t worry about what anyone else is doing.
‘There can be a lot of mind games, some people attempt to psych others out. It is a big game but the best way to deal with it is to not engage with the game. Focus on yourself. If your opponent has psyched you out, got into your head, they have beaten you before we are even in the pool.’
Having missed out on the World Championships in South Korea because of the bout of glandular fever, next week in Glasgow is her chance to lay down a marker ahead of next April’s Olympic trials. But they will be treating the competition the same as any other. It is simply about progressing through the rounds and making sure she is on the starting block for the final. People keep asking her about Tokyo. They mean well but the Olympics is still in the distance.
‘People do come up and want to talk to me about the Olympics and getting there, and they mightn’t know anything about the qualification process. They just think you are going to the Olympics.’
If she is asked about Tokyo, McSharry’s thoughts remain steadfast on what she needs to do the next day in the pool. The time spent going up and down the N15, and going up and down the pool in Ballyshannon, has already led somewhere special. And it might yet lead to even greater places.