Six months out from the Paris Olympics, the clock is ticking down towards Mona McSharry's defining moment.
A podium finish in the City of Light is the obvious target for the Sligo swimmer. She has certainly put in the work. At the age of 15, McSharry was just under a second shy of the time required to make the Rio Games. A European junior champion at the age of 16 (50m breaststroke), and then shortly after her 17th birthday, she was a world junior champion (100m breaststroke).
Another global gold came in the latter event in 2021, some five months after McSharry’s name gained a wider prominence at the Tokyo Olympics. She became only the second Irish swimmer ever to make an Olympic final when taking her place in the 100m breaststroke. In the early hours of a July morning three years ago, many adjusted their clocks to see her race.
"I can’t but be happy with eighth place at the Olympics and I love that the whole nation is behind me," a proud McSharry declared afterwards to RTÉ Sport.
"I think I put in a good fight. I'm happy to come away from my first ever Olympics with an eighth place. It's really not that bad..." - Mona McSharry reflects on her first Olympic final pic.twitter.com/PVAzc8kTqr
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) July 27, 2021
"Thank you to everyone who got up to watch it, and for supporting me. Making a final was my target for 2024, so we’re going to have to sit down and make some new targets! It’s amazing."
On 27 July next, exactly three years to the day since the Grange native made that Olympic final, her quest to better that will begin at the Aquatic Centre in Saint-Denis. Her ticket secured after smashing her previous Irish record in the 100m breaststroke at the World Aquatics Championship in Fukuoka, Japan, last summer.
McSharry swam a time of one minute 5.55 seconds in the heats, with her previous best of 1:06.04 set at the Irish Championships in April.
She would narrowly miss out on a world medal, clocking 1:06.07 in the subsequent final, just 0.13 of a second off bronze. Four Olympic gold medallists touched the wall ahead of her, still it was a great confidence boost for McSharry.
2023 also saw McSharry claim a hat-trick of gold medals at the European U-23 championships in Dublin, as well as silver and bronze at the Aquatics World Cup in Budapest. In December, she opted not to take in the European Short Course in Bucharest, focusing instead on her college commitments at the University of Tennessee.
January 2024
Paris is now that bit closer. And McSharry is into her final semester in Tennessee. She’s majoring in kinesiology, which is the 'the study of the mechanics of body movement'. She does, however, intend to extend her college stay for a fifth year, taking in the spring term in 2025.
Speaking to the press at an Olympic Federation of Ireland media briefing, McSharry was in good spirits as she outlined her racing plan between now and the end of July.
"First up, it’s a mix of college and long-course racing until March," she said.
"I’ll do a couple more dual meets for college and then I’m heading off to Worlds in Doha for the Long Course Championships (she’ll compete in the three breaststroke events – 50m, 100m, 200m), then I’ll fly back and do SECs the following week and NCAAs will be the end of March.
"Then we’re straight into a pretty intense block, maybe one or two long course competitions to prepare for summer, but once March is over it’ll be more training, getting my head in the right space for the Olympics."
"I’m in my last semester of college, so I should graduate in May. I’ll have a pretty nice schedule this semester, it shouldn’t be too crazy."
And while some of the leading names will be absent from the Worlds in Doha, McSharry is still seeing some benefit in lining up.
"I think a good few are bypassing it. It’ll still be very competitive but not with the same depth we see at the Olympics, which will be good. It’ll give me an opportunity to race fast, get a good middle lane, and experience that, but it won’t be the exact same as what we’ll see at the Olympics."
Grappling with a personal low
A sense of anticipation is gathering alright for McSharry. But it wasn’t too long ago that she "hated" swimming, that she was trapped in a sport she "disliked".
Things came to a head on a Sunday morning in July 2022. The afterglow of Tokyo a year previously, that ahead-of-schedule high-point, now meant nothing.
"Goodness, I could go on forever with this," was McSharry’s initial response when asked to relive the dark mist that descended on her.
"I think after the Olympics I thought hitting it full steam would be the best way to get over that cycle. We had a couple conversations with people from the Olympics and they explained how people experience a lull after, not knowing what to do next.
"For me I thought that wasn’t going to be an issue, I was straight back to college, racing.
"It just came to a head some Sunday in the middle of summer. I remember waking up and I was really upset, crying, I didn't know why I was crying"
"I thought it’d be OK but I had a really hard semester in school and put so much pressure on myself after having a good performance at the Olympics. So I think it became very tense and uncomfortable. Training became very stressful; competition became very stressful. School was very hard, I was struggling but not necessarily realising it. I let it get pretty bad.
"I wanted to race but it was more so for relief, swimming fast and I’d be relieved I swam fast rather than excited because that’s what I experienced at the World Short Course that December.
"I got third in the 100m breaststroke but I really wasn’t that happy which doesn’t make sense. I came back, completed the college season up until March, I kept training into the summer. I stayed here over the summer, I was living by myself, training at the pool but not really enjoying that.
"It just came to a head some Sunday in the middle of summer. I remember waking up and I was really upset, crying, I didn’t know why I was crying. I was really unhappy. I called my friends from home, I was talking to them anyway, we talked through it and they helped me realise what was going on and I didn’t realise it stemmed from swimming.
"I thought I was just stressed from school, from other things, and never really realised that maybe swimming was the cause. I had come to the conclusion that I hated swimming, I really disliked it, and that’s all I do, especially in summer when I don’t have classes. I’m going to the pool, swimming, fuelling because of training, sleeping because of training – everything is mapped out for swimming.
"I was trapped in something I really disliked and so I decided I was going to finish the season because I knew I wanted to swim at European Long Course that summer and race.
"But my head really wasn't in it at all. I remember swimming the 50m semi-finals breaststroke and I didn't make it back to finals and I was actually jumping for joy because I was done, the season was over and I was just really excited to be done."
August 2022
Time for reflection. Again, seeking advice from others, McSharry gave herself a deadline in getting herself out of the place she was now in. Could she love swimming again?
She continues her story: "So I took a really long break, went home for a little bit, kind of chilled, didn't train at all at the end of August/start of September and made the decision with my coach - I'd been speaking to my coach about this at this point - that I wasn't ready to be done but I had to try and change something.
"So I came back that season, 22/23 season, realising, more so in training than in competition, that I would have to figure out a way to enjoy it again and if I couldn't do that by December I was going to be done.
"That was kind of the deadline I had set for myself, regardless of anything else, Worlds coming up that summer, or anything. I was like 'OK, we're going to see how this goes, I'm just going to try to come in with a calm, fresh mindset'.
"At that point, they hadn't decided that Worlds that summer was going to be a qualification meet for the Olympics so, to me, that season was kind of like open-ended, I didn't set any goals, there wasn't anything big I had to do so it was like 'it doesn't really matter, let's take a little bit of the pressure off, calm down, and really try to enjoy training and maybe be a little bit lighter on myself' and so I did that.
"I don't exactly know what I did to change it but it changed and, so, I had a really great training season that season, I had so much fun, raced really well in January, I did the two-hour pro series this time last year as well and raced really well, and that kind of set me up really well to go into the summer and swim well in the summer.
"I'm just trying to carry the same light-hearted, no-pressure into this season as well, although there is a little bit more pressure with it being an Olympic year but it's been working so far.
"I definitely have a different view on swimming that I used to, it used to be everything for me and I don't love it in the same way now but I don't hate it anymore. I was able to get myself out of that place."
And it was those closest to her that helped her emerge from the gloom. McSharry did not seek professional help; she did not reach out to a sport psychologist.
"It was more family, friends and coach," she revealed.
"I definitely could have but, I don't know, I felt like those people are the people I trust the most around me and, to be really open with and they kind of helped me through it. I didn't feel the need to."
"We live such a busy life, it's so scheduled, it’s so structured. You get out of the pool and you’re like 'OK I didn’t really enjoy that but that’s just one day, we’ll wake up tomorrow and do it again and it’ll be fine.’ You don’t really stop to think really deeply. I’m quite a determined person, so I was like ‘I’m doing this, we’re gonna get through this’.
"Until I woke up that day and was just overwhelmed with emotions I didn’t really realise. I knew there was something wrong but I didn’t really realise and at that point it just happened that I was talking to my friends and it felt right at that point to also speak to my coach. I’d already spoken to a couple of people and sought help so didn’t feel the need to speak to anyone else.
"My circle’s really small so I find it hard to open up to a lot of people and, for me, I felt a lot more comfortable to speak to someone who knew me well. A trained professional would also have been really helpful but the way my mind works, it was a lot easier for me to talk to those people.
"My friends from home, I grew up training with them so they understand the swimming world."
McSharry admits that the world is now a more serene place for her, a new world where swimming does not have that all-encompassing hold.
"It comes a little bit also with maturity, knowing that some day swimming will end for me," she surmised.
"That was harder to see when I was younger because I always had the plan of 2024 and now that that's almost here I don’t really know what’s happening after it. I don’t have a plan for that yet.
"I could always just see the roadmap of swimming ahead, that was my life and it was pretty easy to be OK, I’m a swimmer, I’m pretty good at this and going to put all my energy into it so coming through that and realising I’m still gonna be me after I’m done swimming, and trying to figure out what the next part of my life is gonna look like has kinda helped me let go of swimming a little but.
"I love knitting, I'm pretty obsessed with it right now (laughs), that’s a pretty good hobby for swimming because I can just sit and knit and recover"
"But I will still hold on to it as something I will always cherish while looking at the other things that make me happy and that I can fill my day with."
As for the things she fills her day with, away from the pool, McSharry said: "I love to be outdoors and I have my dog (American pitbull terrier called Luna) so I try and go on a lot of walks and adventures. I like a certain amount of alone-time. I've very much an introvert, so it’s nice to be able to go on long walks or chill with her, be alone but not all alone.
"I love to do stuff like that that's pretty chilled, nothing crazy. Sometimes we go on longer hikes on the weekends if we have the time.
"I love knitting, I’m pretty obsessed with it right now (laughs), that’s a pretty good hobby for swimming because I can just sit and knit and recover. Being outdoors is something I really enjoy, I’m probably going to work in something outdoors related when I’m older, I’m not going to be stuck inside."
Paris fine-tuning
Fine margins will no doubt be the difference come the summer and McSharry has identified areas that can help in her pursuit of a medal.
"I'm focusing a lot on my sleep, I mean sleep is something that a lot of athletes can improve on.
"And then, flexibility; I'm quite a tight individual. We're doing a lot of fun things in the weight room that are a little less generic or normal which I'm really enjoying too because I have a lot of strength.
"It's then about applying that strength in different ways; I'm working on that, being able to move in different directions. In the water it's about mapping out the best 100 and 200 that I can, so when I show up in July I know exactly what I want to do and how I'm going to swim that race.
"Getting good repititions of that."
