TOKYO TIME FOR MONA!
Sligo’s superstar swimmer Mona McSharry’s dream of competing in the Olympics is now set to become a reality. On Tuesday, the 20-year-old Grange native achieved the FINA ‘A’ Olympic consideration time for this summer’s Tokyo Games in the women’s 100 metres breaststroke.
SLIGO has always found solace in sport and sport has always found solace in Sligo. Generations have discovered and followed their chosen heroes, be they teams or individuals.
Of course, Sligo sport can’t be discussed without mentioning Sligo Rovers.
But aside from team sports, be that soccer, Ladies
Football, Gaelic football, hurling, basketball or rugby, Sligo town’s bricks and motar as well as the county’s green pastures have produced outstanding sporting individuals.
Just the last 25 years or so has given us cyclist Mark Scanlon, an Olympian and
Tour de France participant, Grand National-winning jockey Derek Fox and runner Mary Cullen, a European indoor medallist.
Now we have Mona McSharry, the wonderful swimmer from Grange.
Bound for the Tokyo
Olympics in at least one category (women’s 100 metres breaststroke), McSharry appears to have always been destined for greatness.
Even on Tuesday when twice achieving the Olympic qualification time for the 100 metres breaststroke, this was simply another moment – however glorious – in a career so far that has been defined by outstanding moments.
The north Sligo native, still only 20, has already set multiple Swim Ireland records in long course and short course. Her breakout campaign was four years ago at the World Junior Swimming Championships in Indianapolis, USA, when she won gold.
Even then, as a 17-year-old, she was a European champion and a holder of national records. Those who coached her knew that Tokyo was a realistic goal – and in interviews at the time, post-Indianapolis, McSharry herself was setting Japan as a target.
Only a worldwide panedmic postponed what seemed the inevitable – McSharry taking the next step or, in her case as a swimmer, the next stroke.
Once the Olympic Federation of Ireland have confirmed Team Ireland for the Tokyo trip – the Olympics begin on July 23 and continue until August 8 – can we really start to wonder what’s next for McSharry.
Can she post a new, improved time for the 100 metres breaststroke in Japan or – dare we dream – win a medal there? She has worked so hard to get this far and has also settled marvellously into her sports scholarship experience at University of Tennessee – she only went there last August. Sligo’s next big thing, the Ballyshannon Marlins Swim Club member knows that to think big and achieve big you have to work big. Swimming to get to the level she is at and aspiring to reach the next level is a relentless pursuit. Her schedule? Swim-eat-swim-sleep-swim-eat-swim-sleep. Repeat.
She hasn’t simply leaned on her obvious talent, she has worked at it, worked on perfecting her technique, listened to her coaches, done what has to be done. And more. The support of her family, community and county has been crucial, too. She is repaying this faith because every new personal best that she registers, each time she trims hundredths of a second off a target time, she makes people from Sligo feel a little bit taller and walk a little prouder.
Then there is the example she’s already setting. It is not that we’ll see dozens of girls and boys want to take up swimming all of a sudden, but that Sligo’s children will want to be the best they can be in their sport.
They will want to be the next Olympian, just like Mona.
This feel-good factor generated by McSharry’s achievements should also extend to a drive that Sligo and the north-west region should strive to have better sports facilities, better coaches (whatever the code). Sligo’s greatest ever swimmer is just doing what she is good at and her county – and her country – is grateful for this.