No slowing of the glory days for Irish swimming in Paris, with Mona McSharry putting herself right in contention to make another Olympic final, this time in the 200m breaststroke.
Back inside the Paris La Défense Arena just over 36 hours after winning bronze in the 100m breaststroke, McSharry was drawn in the first of three heats on Wednesday morning, with the top 16 progressing to the semi-finals later tonight (9.03pm Irish time).
McSharry also found herself back in familiar company, finishing third behind Tatjana Smith from South Africa, who won gold in Monday’s 100m breaststroke final, and won the heat in 2:21.57 – which also turned out to be the fastest of the 16 qualifiers.
Kaylene Corbett also from South Africa also closed fast to touch home just ahead of McSharry, 2:23.85 to 2:23.98, passing her just inside the last 50m. By then, McSharry’s job was already done, and she was the seventh fastest of the 16 to go through, the top eight then making Thursday’s final.
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“It’s third fastest I’ve ever swam, and my second fastest morning, so very happy with that after the last 48 hours,” she said. “I felt strong this morning, and it’s just a matter of trying to go a bit faster later on tonight. I think the mind is probably more tired than the body.”
Indeed her medal exertions on Monday night inevitably meant it took a while to switch off.
“I got to bed about 4.30am, maybe 5, but I did sleep in until 10.30. It just took a while for the mind to calm down. I still haven’t actually watched back the race [100m breaststroke], I did watch some of the interviews, but started crying again, so that was enough of that. I’ll review everything when all the swimming is over.”
It also comes just over 12 hours after Daniel Wiffen’s stunning gold medal swim in the 800m, before he turns his attention to further medal success in the 1,500m and then the 10km marathon swim.
Three years ago, McSharry became the first Irish swimmer since Michelle Smith de Bruin in 1996 to make an Olympic final, when McSharry progressed to the 100m breaststroke final in Tokyo, where she finished eighth in 1:06.94.
In Paris, Irish swimmers have made three finals already, Wiffen and McSharry also joined by Ellen Walshe, who made the 400m medley final, where she finished in eighth.
McSharry also touched briefly on the presence of the Chinese swimmers in Paris, and the continuing controversy surrounding their 23 swimmers who tested positive for the same banned drug, trimetazidine (TMZ), at a domestic meeting seven months prior to the Tokyo Olympics.
All 23 Chinese swimmers escaped any sanction after being investigated by China’s own anti-doping authority when it was decided they’d all been contaminated by traces of TMZ in the hotel kitchen. This finding was then accepted by the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada), and World Aquatics, and 11 of those same swimmers are in Paris.
In her 100m breaststroke final, China’s reigning World champion Tang Qianting, still only 20, who had been in front at the turn, won silver in 1:05.54, just ahead of McSharry’s 1:05.59, which was just .01 of a second ahead of both Benedetta Pilatto from Italy and Lilly King, the world record holder from the US. Both timed in 1:05.60, thus sharing fourth place.
Another Chinese swimmer, Shiwen Ye, qualified fourth fastest of the 200m breaststroke heats this morning.
“I obviously don’t agree with doping,” said McSharry, “but I haven’t really done a whole lot of research of what happened with that, it’s very much out of my control, so I just leave it parked where it is. There’s not a lot that I can do, only probably get worked up about, so I just don’t think about it, honestly.”
Another Olympic swimming final to think about instead perhaps.
