Fifteen-year-old Mona McSharry from the Marlins club in Ballyshannon proved to be the real star on the final day of competition at the 2016 Irish National Swimming Championships at the National Aquatic Centre.
McSharry had already won gold in the women’s 100 metre breaststroke and the teenager won two more gold medals this afternoon, the first in the 200m individual medley, with the second coming in the 200m breaststroke.
McSharry hunted down UCD’s Shani Stallard in the last 50 freestyle of the IM to take the gold in 2:19.27.
And then, just 20 minutes later, the Donegal swimmer was back in the pool and took a convincing win in the breaststroke final in 2:32.74, just outside her own Irish junior record.
McSharry, who also finished third in the 50m freestyle final, will now turn her attention to competing in next month’s European championships at the London Olympic pool.
Shane Ryan won the 50m backstroke title in 25.43secs, while Ards swimmer Curtis Coulter won the 50m freestyle in 22.73secs to complete the 50/100 sprint double.
Andrew Meegan once again toyed with the field on his way to winning the 1500m freestyle.
The Aer Lingus swimmer missed out in the 800m freestyle final, attempting to come from a long way back, but Meegan left it too late to catch Athlone’s Brendan Gibbons, who won gold in 8:22.75.
The meet at the NAC had doubled as an Olympic qualifying event, so there was a certain disappointment that Swim Ireland has not added to their Rio qualified swimmers in Shane Ryan, Fiona Doyle and Nicholas Quinn who have already booked their places.
Sixteen-year-old Conor Ferguson went closest this week and was a mere five hundredths of a second shy of making the 100m backstroke time, while 21-year-old Alex Murphy was less than half a second outside qualifying for the 100m breaststroke.
There will be one more chance for Ferguson, Murphy and Texas A&M based Sycerika McMahon at the upcoming European championships.
