Double delight as Mona McSharry lands second European gold

Mona McSharry secured a second gold at the European Under-23 Swimming Championships in Dublin on Saturday.

Having won the 50m breaststroke gold on Friday evening, McSharry made it a double just 22-and-a-half hours later at the National Aquatic Centre in Dublin.

McSharry finished in 1:06.69 to win the 100m breaststroke final with just 0.01 of a second to spare.

McSharry touched the wall with millimetres between the Grange woman and Kaitlyn Dobler from the United States, who clocked 1:06.70. Anita Bottazzo from Italy was third in 1:07.17, taking the silver medal with Dobler unable to medal, while Clara Rybak-Andersen from Denmark bagged bronze in 1:08.12.

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“I was just pushing,” McSharry said. “I knew it was going to be all in the last few metres and I was just trying to push.”

The Marlin’s Swimming Club Ballyshannon representative put her strong kick to ‘genetics’ and added: “I love doing a lot of explosive and strength work in the gym.”

In Saturday’s semi-final, McSharry was the quickest qualifier when going 1:07.30 before finishing 13th overall in the 50m freestyle in 25.64 seconds.

The previous evening, she took the 50m breaststroke gold, racing home in 30.37 seconds.

Having reached the final in the 100m breaststroke final at the recent World Aquatics Championships in Japan, McSharry returned home to Ireland with her confidence soaring and came through her heat with little fuss.

In the final, McSharry took the first gold of the Championships with Italy’s Anita Bottazzo second in 30.59 seconds and Kaitlyn Dobler, a native of the United States, coming home in joint third with Norway’s Silje Slyngstadli.

At the World Championships recently, McSharry sealed her place at next year’s Olympic Games when setting a new Irish 100m breaststroke record of 1:05.55 - the first time the Grange woman dipped below 1:06 - to reach the final.

In the final, she was an agonising 0.13 of a second off a medal and also finished 11th in the 50m breaststroke and 15th in the 200m breaststroke.