Rejuvenated Mona McSharry keeps Olympic option open ahead of Irish Open Championships

It is perhaps the best sign of how she has rekindled her passion for the pool that Mona McSharry allows herself to contemplate Los Angles now.

While not quite certain yet if she will knuckle down for a tilt at another Olympic Games, McSharry admits now that the 2028 games “might be on the books”.

Olympic bronze medallist McSharry is back on home soil this week for the Irish Open Championships. 

Next Tuesday, she will be bestowed with the Freedom of Sligo, but first she has business to attend to.

Under the banner of the Marlins Swimming Club in Ballyshannon, McSharry has entires for the 50m breaststroke (Thursday), 200m breaststroke (Friday) and 100m breaststroke (Saturday) events in Bangor.

McSharry has already pre-qualified for the European Championships - which take place in Paris in late summer - but needs to swim the standards again at the Bangor Aurora Aquatics & Leisure Centre. 

She enters Irish water in encouraging firm.

Last month, at the Tyr Pro Swim Series in Westmont, Illinois, McSharry won 50m breaststroke gold and silver in the 100m version.

In the US Open, she took gold in the 50m, tied for second over 100m and landed a 200m bronze.

At last year’s World Aquatics Swimming Championships World Cup, McSharry won five medals across three weekends and set five Irish records in the same period.

I’ve gone back closer to having a love for it again,” McSharry says. “I loved the training block I did from April 2025 into the summer, really had a lot of fun training before the World Championships. There was no part of me that did not enjoy that period.

"Then I decided to do another year, compete in World Cups and see how that goes. I've been really loving it so far, especially the way I'm feeling now about training."

It wasn’t always so. 

In 2024, McSharry joined an elite pantheon when winning bronze in the 100m breaststroke at the Olympic Games in Paris. When she came out of the water at the Paris La Défense Arena, McSharry was fully intent on walking away from the sport.

The Grange woman didn’t swim for five months after the Olympics.  Instead, she spent time going across the United States, going from Knoxville to Colorado along with her dog, Luna - an American Pit Bull Terrier - and her best friend, Roisin McGuire, in a camper van.

"I thought after 2024 I would be ready to move on and do the next thing, didn't think I had another four-year block in me,” she says. “I still know that swimming is not everything but I also know now that I still love it.

Mona McSharry. Photo: Sportsfile

"The daily discipline has become such a routine and it's not mentally as hard as it used to be.

"Holding myself to a high standard has become easier because of the life I live now. That makes it easier, as I have more mental capacity to pour into being really good in training.

"It is a maturing, moving through the sport and gaining so much knowledge, learning from the ups and downs, experiencing the rollercoaster of being in a high place and then in a lower place. That is sport, you are never going to move through it linearly, and experiencing that has given me a lot more wisdom.

"I am as dedicated and committed to swimming fast, always shooting to do better. But there's less stress or pressure. I just feel so light, that’s the only way I can describe it. And I’m trying to channel that as long as I can."

McSharry is concluding a Masters in Leadership and Communication at the University of Tennessee, where she obtained a degree in kinesiology. 

She describes as “liberating” to have come through the 2024 Olympic cycle with her medal - something she targeted since she was a young teenager. 

"In 2022 I came to the realisation that I did not love swimming as much as I used to, that it was not the be-all and end-all of my life,” she adds.

That came after she swam in the 100m breaststroke final at the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo, finishing eighth.

She had been sculpted at Marlins, largely under the tutelage of Grace Meade at the Ballyshannon Leisure Centre.

From looking like she was close to being done in the sport, McSharry has found something of a second wind - and the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles are now possible again.

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“2028 might be on the books," she says. "Loving the training aspect, you need that leading up to the Olympics.

"I'm still leaving it open in that if I turn around tomorrow and want it to be done, then I will let myself do that. I don't want to push through if I'm not enjoying it, but I do see myself racing in 2028 - especially going the way I feel right now about training."

McSharry is not the sole Donegal interest at the Irish Open Championships. 

From the Swilly Seals Swimming Club, Cora Rooney, Caoimhe Nic Aoidh, Cillian Murphy, Anna Hennessy and Eoin Rooney are all entered.