Fifth place for McSharry in 100m Breaststroke final at the Europeans

Mona McSharry had to be content with fifth place in the final of the 100m Breaststroke at the European Swimming Championships in Rome on Saturday.

The Grange, Co Sligo native, who graduated from Marlins Swimming Club in Ballyshannon missed out on a medal in a star-studded field by 0.24 of a second.

Benedetta Pilato of Italy won the race in 1:05.97 and her compatriot Lisa Angiolini was second ahead of Lithuania's Ruta Meilutyte in third and another Lithuanian, Kotryna Teterevkova, fourth.

McSharry clocked 1:07.14, which brought a twinge of disappointment as her semi-final time of 1:06.44 would’ve been enough for third place in the final. However, the 21-year-old McSharry takes part in the 200m breaststroke this morning, Sunday.

“I put high expectations on myself and that’s not really where I wanted to be tonight,” she told RTE Sport. “That’s the way the cards fall sometimes and I did all I could. I was trying to work better on the back 50. You can’t predict it sometimes. It’s really nice to race against those top ladies. Most of them were in the Tokyo final so it’s not a step down. 

“There’s some tough competition in Europe. I’m blessed that I can get to this level. All the hard training and the tougher months,  when you’re not in front of the cameras you wonder ‘why the hell do I do this?’ but this is why. It’s what I work hard to do. I’ve my coach from home Grace Meade [Marlins Swimming Club in Ballyshannon] here and my family, which is great.”