Focus on now and Olympics, amid uncertain future for Mona McSharry

Post Olympic Games, Mona McSharry's plan is 'van life' in a traipse from the United States' east to west.

Thereafter, who knows?

In 2021, McSharry became the first Irish woman since Michelle Smith in 1996 to reach an Olympic swimming final, finishing eighth in the 100m breaststroke in Tokyo.

McSharry will, as she did at the last Olympics, compete in both the 100m and 200m breaststroke events at the Paris La Défense Arena.

Making finals is the immediate aim.

“Once you make it into the final, it’s who can get their hands on the wall first,” McSharry, the Grange native who came through the waves at Marlins Swimming Club in Ballyshannon, says.

"It’s rare that you see best times in finals, it’s usually just about who’s mentally and physically ready to just go for that 100m and doesn’t let the nerves take over.

“Once I get to the final I’ll just try and get my hands on the wall above as many people as possible and hopefully that’s top three.”

At some point after the last Olympics, McSharry, a former world junior champion, fell out of love with swimming. She described her involvement in sport as leaving her feeling “trapped in something I really disliked”.

A student at the University of Tennessee, where she has recently finished a four-year degree in kinesiology, she hit a reset button.

“Swimming is not my whole life anymore and I don’t look at it that way anymore,” she says. “I’ve put a great amount of time into it because I love what I do and I want to be really good.

“I think that’s the big lasting result from getting to that point where I really just wasn’t enjoying it anymore is that I’m trying to focus on really liking the small details: Swimming really fast at training, getting to see my friends and I think focusing on that mind shift has really helped."

McSharry will skip the first semester out of college (she is planning to do a post grad in Tennessee) and will take an extended break from swimming upon her return from Paris.

“I'm doing a road trip for three months,” she says. “I'm driving across the country to the west coast . . . we're renting a van. This will be the longest break I've taken from swimming in eight, nine years.

“It's kind of fun to just see what it's like to be not an athlete for a little bit and just go explore and walk and hike and I'll still be super active because I think that's just the way I am.”

McSharry booked her place in the Olympic 100m breaststroke at the 2023 World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka. She added qualification in the 200m when taking over two seconds off her Irish record with a 2:22.49 swim at the Mel Zajac Jr International Swim Meet in Vancouver, Canada.

It might seem bizarre that, at just 23, she could well be at the end of the line.

“I’m trying to figure out if I want to be done with swimming or whether I want to keep going,” she says. McSharry says. “Next year is going to be a really light year just to see if I want to continue or not.”