Mona McSharry starred once again at the first finals session of the Irish National Team Trials taking place at the National Aquatic Centre on the Sport Ireland Campus.
McSharry, along with Daniel Wiffen (800m Freestyle), Shane Ryan (100m Backstroke) and Darragh Greene (100m Breaststroke) had all gone under the FINA Olympic Consideration Time (OCT) in yesterday morning’s heats and while McSharry and Greene were both under that time again McSharry lowered her newly minted Irish Record knocking .68 off the morning’s time of 1:06.97 in 1:06.29.
“I think it just shows I was free to race and not worry about the time,” she said. “I was working on trying something a little bit different. It was a completely different race strategy to the morning, and it just worked to my advantage.”
“It was really nice to have the opportunity to experience that and test it out and see if it worked. I am going to go home and analyse the 100, but honestly, I’m really happy with how I competed in the 100 and I have done the job I came here to do.”
“It has been a very careful and at times challenging process to get us to the point where we can have Ireland’s leading athletes go head to head over five days in an attempt to claim Olympic and Paralympic berths and other international selections,” said Performance Director Jon Rudd speaking in advance of the meet.
“It is great to have so many of our swimming community and supporters of Irish swimming watching every stroke of every session with us via the live stream on the RTÉ Player.”
“Our athletes and coaches have prepared in the very best way possible during a pandemic and without the support of our principal partners and stakeholders in Performance swimming, we would not be where we are now – five days of exciting racing with all to play for.”
Paralympic swimmers are taking part as well. So far Ireland has secured three female and one male place in the line up for Tokyo. Places are awarded based on world rankings.
Swim Ireland was also keen to recognise the support of the Government of Ireland, the Department of Sport, Sport Ireland and the Sport Ireland Institute, the Olympic Federation of Ireland, the Sport Ireland Campus, the University of Limerick, the Northern Ireland Executive, SERCO and Sport Northern Ireland and its Institute for supporting them to deliver the event.
The competition continues today and for the following three days and can be followed on the RTÉ Player with commentary from John Kenny and poolside reaction from Joanne O’Riordan.
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