Another magnificent swim from Mona McSharry has landed Ireland a second medal at the World Short Course Championships in Abu Dhabi - her bronze medal win in the 100m breaststroke also coming gift wrapped with another Irish record.
Having missed out on bronze by just .04 of a second in the 50m breaststroke on Friday, the Sligo swimmer wasn’t about to be left disappointed for a second time, finishing superbly well to snatch bronze in 1:03.92, nudging defending champion and world record holder Alia Atkinson of Jamaica off the medal podium.
For McSharry, who this summer in Tokyo became the first Irish swimmer to make an Olympic final since 1996, it’s also a first on the world stage, and Ireland’s only third ever medal at a World Championships, after Ellen Walshe produced the swim of her young life to win the silver medal in the 400m individual medley last Thursday.
Both swimmers are now based at the University of Tennessee, the 21-year-old McSharry finding herself in one of the best races on day five of the championships: she hadn’t won a world senior medal before, but did win a bronze at the European Short Course Swimming Championships in 2019.
In doing so she improved the Irish record from 1:04.22 to 1:03.82, the final won by Tang Qianting of China maintained in the latest display of her dominance.
Atkinson and Sophie Hansson of Sweden were within touching distance at the halfway stage, before Tang pulled clear to claim gold in in 1:03.92. Hansson held on for silver in 1:03.47, before McSharry stormed through to win bronze.
McSharry said: “I was definitely nervous going into it because I knew I had the potential to medal and it’s really nice to see that all come together in a race. It felt really good and I’m glad I dropped time too.
“It’s been amazing. It’s been really enjoyable to watch other team mates swim really well and have a great time. This is the first time we’ve gotten together as a group since the Olympics and it’s much of the same swimmers, and it’s just really nice to be able to have fun and compete together and be up against the best in the world.”
Walshe, the 20-year-old from Dublin, concluded her championships with a fifth Irish record, swimming 56.68 seconds in the 100m butterfly semi-final to miss the final by 0.06 of a second.
Jack McMillan also had the swim of his life to make the final of the 100m freestyle, his time of 46.70 just .02 off the Irish record held by Shane Ryan.
Daniel Wiffen also set two new Irish senior records on Monday as he made it through to the 1500m final in sixth place. In October, Wiffen became the first Irish swimmer to swim 1500m freestyle in less than 15 minutes when setting the previous Irish senior record at 14:48.24 in the heats at the FINA Swimming World Cup in Budapest.
On Monday he lowered that record again to 14:32.13 to finish fourth in his heat and sixth overall, earning a spot in Tuesday’s 1500m final. During his 1500m, he also broke his own Irish senior record for 800m, reaching that point in 7:41.82 to lower the record by five seconds.
