Mona reflects on year as she plans for 2020
TWO athletes from Grange were representing their country at the European Championships last week with World Junior Champion Mona McSharry reaching her second semi-final while Chris O’Donnell put in a season’s best performance in the 400m in Berlin.
The North Sligo athletes did their hometown and county extremely proud as they competed for Ireland in Glasgow and Berlin respectively. In Glasgow, swimming in her second semi-final of the week, Mona McSharry was unable to match her morning time of 31.09 in the semi-final, touching in 31.45 for 12th place overall.
The 17-year-old has also been nominated to the Olympic Council for the World Youth Olympic Games along with Robbie Powell (Athlone) and Niamh Coyne (National Centre Dublin).
Earlier in the week, the Grange swimmer came through the heat of the Women’s 100m Breaststroke with a time of 1:08.53 and she lowered her time in the semi-final to 1:08.30 finishing 14th overall.
It was Ireland’s most successful week ever at a European Championships which included a Bronze medal for Shane Ryan in the 50m Backstroke, three finals, ten semi-finals, five Irish Senior Records and three Irish Junior Records.
Speaking after the 50m semi-final Mona said she was happy overall with the experience she got from the European Championships.
She said: “The European final was just out of reach. It is a pity obviously and I was hoping I could go faster tonight but with the 50s it’s just splash and dash and either you get it or you don’t.”
She said she has gained experience from the step up to Senior. “Honestly I think I’ve done quite well, I have to look back at the season as a whole I guess. I did quite well at European Short Course in December and I branched out to Freestyle and I’ve been working on other strokes as well but obviously this isn’t exactly as far as I wanted to come.
“I’m here now at the end of the year but all you can do now is hope for more next year,” Mona added. “It’s great to see that if I had slammed my PB I would have been in the top 5 and it’s a pity that obviously it didn’t happen on the day but I guess look you do have bad swims at times and you cannot always be on top and it’s been a tough year but I am happy with the experiences that I’ve got from this meet.
“I think I just need to concentrate on myself next year and even not concentrate on the 100m Breaststroke maybe as much as I did this year because I think I’ve been over-thinking it too much,” Mona said.
With Tokyo 2020 just around the corner there is a lot for Mona to look forward to.“I am actually so excited to get back into training and although this is the end of the season I just want to jump back into it for next year,” the Olympic hopeful added.
I AM HAPPY WITH THE EXPERIENCE I GOT HERE