Cora Rooney sixth in backstroke final as Nulty joins McSharry in breaststroke final

Mona McSharry will swim in the 100m breaststroke final at the 2025 Irish Open Swimming Championships on Monday evening.

Marlin’s Swimming Club’s McSharry, the 2024 Olympic Games bronze medallist, will be joined in the final by Letterkenny’s Molly Nulty.

McSharry came through her semi-final on Sunday afternoon in 1:07.24 with Nulty clocking 1:12.55.

Ellie McCartney is the fastest qualifier to the 100m breaststroke final, the National Centre Limerick swimmer finishing in 1:07.00.

In Sunday morning’s heat at the Sport Ireland National Aquatic Centre, McSharry won in 1:07.53.

McSharry was around two seconds down on her 1:05.51 Irish record in her favoured event, but the Grange native still coasted into the next phase.

McSharry, who is making her return to Irish water after taking a break post Olympics, will go out of lane 5 for Monday’s final with Nulty set to dive into lane 1. 

Swilly Seals representative Nulty, who also attends the National Centre Ulster, came out of her heat in 1:13.68.

Ballyshannon’s Cora Rooney came sixth in the 100m backstroke final. Rooney, who went out of lane 7, finished in 1:04.51.

In the preliminaries, Rooney, also of Swilly Seals and who is a part of the Swim Ireland National Centre (Limerick) squad, clocked 1:04.61 and touched the wall in 1:04.34 in the semi-final.

Lottie Cullen won gold in 1:01.56 while silver went to Maria Godden, who finished in 1:02.10, and a time of 1:02.37 earned Gabriela Georgieva bronze.

Last July, at Paris La Défense Arena, McSharry - who was eighth in the 100m breaststroke final at the previous edition of the Olympic Games in Tokyo - won Ireland’s first Olympic swimming medal in 28 years, bridging a gap to the since-tainted haul landed by Michelle Smith in Atlanta in 1996.

McSharry finished in 1:05.59, beaten only by Tatjana Smith of South Africa and China's Tang Qianting on the Olympic podium before leaving the pool and everyone bar her friend Roisin and Luna, a rescue American pit bull terrier, with whom she travelled across the United States in 66-day van journey.

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After winning that Olympic bronze, McSharry took some time off and was five months out of competitive action in the pool before returning to action with the University of Tennessee.

McSharry ended her collegiate eligibility when winning silver in the 100-yard breaststroke at the NCAA Division 1 Swimming Championships, where she was also fifth in the 200-yard breaststroke and helped the Lady Vols to silver in the 400 medley relay.