Magic Mona!

Grange swimmer Mona McSharry gets closer to representing her country at Tokyo Olympic Games

SLIGO SWIMMING sensation Mona McSharry is on the verge of securing her ticket to Tokyo. On Tuesday, when competing at the Swim Ireland Irish National Team Trials, she twice clocked the qualification standard time for the Olympic Games women’s 100 metres breaststroke.

The Grange native, 20, had to break 1:07.07 and did so with times of 1:06.97 (heats) and 1:06.29 (event finals) at the National Aquatic Centre in Dublin’s Sport Ireland National Campus.

In the process, the University of Tennessee student set a new Irish senior record. She went into this meet just 0.03 of a second off the qualification time.

Reacting to her achievement, she said: “It’s still sinking in, but I want to make sure that I am actually enjoying the moment. Sometimes you can forget to live in it for a minute, so I am definitely going to work on that, because I have been striving for this for so long.”

“I was just trying not to build it up so much in my head – it’s just another 100 metres breaststroke and I’m just going to swim it.”

She added: “I knew I was going to do it and I knew I could do it, but it was still really nice to turn around and be surprised to see it on the board.”

Tomorrow, Friday, the 2017 World Junior champion’s target is qualification in the women’s 200 metres breaststroke. The Tokyo Olympic Games, postponed last year due to Covid-19 restrictions, take place at the end of July. Sligo was previously represented at the Olympics in Athens 2004 by cyclist Mark Scanlon.

MCSHARRY INSPIRES A COUNTY: