Mona McSharry doesn’t know herself these days.
For the past 2½ months, the Olympic bronze medallist hasn’t been near a swimming pool. No pre-dawn starts, or punishing, endless lengths.
The Sligo woman has been on a road trip in a Ram Solis RV camper van exploring and enjoying all that the American west coast has to offer, a complete switch-off from the journey that took her to that brilliant performance in the 100 metres breaststroke final at Paris 2024.
“Probably since I was 11 or 12,” says the 24-year-old of when last she managed to take such a long break from the cyclical routine of training-racing-training-racing that has been her life’s mission for so long.
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It’s been some year. McSharry graduated from the University of Tennessee with a degree in Kinesiology in May before her exploits in the pool in Paris. She followed that with the road trip along the USA’s west coast plans to return to the college in Knoxville in early-2025 for a year-long Masters.
The road trip covered the whole west coast of America – with Róisín McGuire, her best friend, and rescue dog Luna, a bully mix: “It was great!” – and was one of those adventures that brought a degree of escapism, more than just a box ticked off the wish list. Away from the pool, away from academia.
“It has honestly been really nice. Normally, for swimming, we take max four weeks in August or September time off after the season is done. It is tough when I see my competitors and other people that I know, friends and stuff, going back to the pool and it makes me nervous. But also I know, probably more mentally than physically, but probably both that I needed a break like this and it has been so refreshing. And if I want to go back and do another four years or I guess 3½ years now (to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles) I think I needed a break like this just to be able to relax and allow myself to recover,” she says.
Nobody could begrudge her the leisure time, not after a superb year in the pool which started back in February with appearances in no fewer than three finals at the World Aquatics Championships in Doha, then a quick flight back to compete for Tennessee at the South Eastern Conference (SEC) Championships and then on to the NCAAs (US national finals) where she departed with a string of medals.
McSharry is more aware than anyone that she can be hard on herself. Reaching three finals at the Worlds but departing without a medal – finishing fifth in two of those races – brought disappointment but also, in its own way, it proved an important learning curve on the way to ultimately getting an Olympic medal.
In reflecting on the year, McSharry admits: “I was honestly very excited at the start of the year. The swim season starts in September time and goes September to September so, at that point, we were already pretty heavily in training and definitely very excited to head into 2024.
“The Worlds in February was my last big long course meet. That was exciting and definitely a good learning curve and a point to adjust some final things. But training was going really well and I was doing a lot of mental prep so I would say the build up was a lot of fun and definitely with some nerves and stressful moments but for the most part it was a great prep.
“Going into those Worlds and looking at seeding times, I was seeded second in [the] 100 breaststroke just based on the people who were going there and seeded pretty highly in my other events too, so the anticipation going in was that I would be able to medal and, in my mind, which was wrong at the time, I prepared myself that I am going to medal at Worlds and therefore I am going to be able to medal at the Olympics and that is the frame of mind I went into the Worlds with.
“But I wasn’t fully tapered for Worlds. I wasn’t fully prepped. That was not the plan. The plan was to go and kind of practice racing long course in a really intensive environment so I probably went in with the wrong mindset because I should not have been thinking, ‘all right, I am ready to compete at my best’ because I was still in training.
“And it was definitely really hard not racing to my best ability and having medals be so close but not getting them and then having to come to terms with the fact that this was not the main priority for this year, the Olympics is, and we chose this meet in preparation for the Olympics, and so the medals at this one are not that important.
“It definitely was tough to get over at the time but it is so funny because, looking back now, obviously I am really proud of how I did, but February was a really busy time for me too what with college racing. Like, I went to the Worlds and hopped on a plane right back to compete at the SECs for Tennessee and swam really well there and then a month later raced at the NCAAs for the college team. So, it was a very busy time, and we were doing a lot of training, so I can reflect now and think, ‘no, actually, I did really well’. But it was tough at the moment to stay positive and not be like ‘I didn’t medal here, how am I going to medal at the Olympics?’”
McSharry turned it all into a positive, though. She did a lot of visualisation and mental training, working with her sports psychologist. Hindsight proved to be her friend.
“I think coming back and having this experience where the race didn’t necessarily go the way I wanted and having to work through that was great preparation and helped me prepare for the Olympics, for whatever the scenario was going to be, whether that be a medal or something else and be really proud of how I raced anyway.
“I could just prepare for all the different scenarios that could occur within a race like not feeling your best and being able to still race fast or not being in your head and being able to race fast. We did so much visualisation of all the different scenarios of what could happen in Paris and that really helped me.”
The final itself was fast and furious and thrilling. Tatjana Smith from South Africa touched home first in 1:05.28 for gold with China’s Tang Qianting claiming silver in 1:05.54 and McSharry’s fingertips hitting the wall in 1:05.59, just .01 of a second ahead of Italy’s Benedetta Pilato and American Lilly King who both finished in 1:05.60.
So, what did it actually feel like to realise that a place on the podium, an Olympic medal, was hers?
“It is so hard to describe it. It almost felt surreal in the moment. Like, it is such a quick end when you think about all of the work that goes into that one moment and building up to it. I am so focused on it that I am not really thinking about what comes after obviously. And then, all of a sudden, I touch the wall and it is done. It is like, really strange.
“There is obviously a lot of relief knowing I made the podium and was able to swim so fast with so many great people in the pool, in the other lanes beside me, that’s really exciting.
“It took me a long time to actually recognise what had happened even though I had visualised being on the podium and visualised winning the race too. So, I was preparing myself to do really great things in Paris and it happens and it doesn’t feel real almost. Like, I believed in myself but for it actually to happen is like an extra step. It is really cool.”
And, in a way, McSharry confides that she got as much satisfaction and joy from seeing how her performance impacted others. Her family. Her extended family. Her boyfriend. Her friends.
“Just having so many people there which is a thing that we missed in Tokyo. I’ve, never had that many people travel to a competition for me, it just made it so much better because I got to hear what they were doing as supporters and sometimes it felt like they were even more excited than me and that was also really fun. Because I feel like you are sharing the moment then with so many people who have been along the journey with you through all of it and know all the ups and the downs and know how hard it has been but also how good it has been.”
McSharry will ease back into academia for her Masters in Tennessee in January with an open mind on where her swimming journey is headed.
As she put it, “Until it [the Masters] is done, I will still be a student/athlete and after than I will either transition to pro or retire and get a job. I am not really sure yet. I am leaving that chapter open for right now and I will see when I get a little bit closer what I feel like doing.”
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