Mona McSharry wins Sportswoman of the Month award

The Irish Times/Sport Ireland Sportswoman Award for June: Mona McSharry (Swimming)   The final medal table from the 2017 European Junior Swimming Championships in Israel had a pleasant look about it, only four nations finishing ahead of Ireland who shared fifth place with the Netherlands. And while Conor Ferguson chipped in handsomely with a silver in the 50m backstroke, it was Sligo's Mona McSharry who contributed three-quarters of the medal haul, the 16-year-gold ending the competition as Ireland's most decorated European Junior medallist.

A year ago the Marlins, Ballyshannon swimmer gave a fair indication of her promise when she returned from the championships in Hungary with a silver and bronze in her luggage. This time around she did enough to move past both Gráinne Murphy and Sycerika McMahon in the European Junior roll of honour by collecting gold in the 50m and 100m breaststroke and silver in the 200m. And there were a bunch of new Irish records, too.

The first of those records was broken in McSharry’s opening swim of the competition, when she lowered her own Irish mark in the 50m breaststroke in the heats. Come the semi-finals she broke the senior record set by Fiona Doyle in 2013, before winning her first ever major medal by holding off the challenge of Poland’s Weronika Hellmann in the final.

Painful

She was record-breaking again in her next event, the 200m breaststroke. It’s an event she says she wouldn’t be “as fond of” and is “still learning how to do it”, but she still managed to break Doyle’s 2015 record in the final when she was only pipped to gold by a tenth of a second, Britain’s Layla Black catching her in the last five metres after McSharry had led from the start. “It was painful, but it was worth it,” she said.

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Two medals in the bag, then, and before heading for home she picked up another gold in her favourite event, the 100m breaststroke. That’s what you call a useful trip.

There’ll be no lie-ins just yet, though. Her mother Viola will still be driving her from their Grange, Co Sligo home to the pool in Ballyshannon for her early morning sessions, McSharry now looking ahead to the World Senior Championships in Budapest in July and the World Junior Championships in Indianapolis in August.

While still a junior, this is her last year at that level, she qualified for the senior championships when she won three gold medals at the nationals back in August, her times in each all inside the qualifying mark for Budapest. So, her immediate response to her success in Israel was: “There are a few things now that I can work on when I get back to training”.

No resting on her laurels, then, her summer’s only just begun. But what a golden start.

Previous monthly winners (awards run from December 2016 to November 2017, inclusive)

December: Leanne Kiernan (Soccer). The Cavan teenager had an exceptional 12 months on the club and international front, excelling for the Irish under-17s and 19s before making her debut at senior level, marking it by scoring and collecting the player of the match award. She helped Shelbourne to a league and cup double, scoring a hat-trick in the FAI Cup final, and won the FAI Young Player of the Year award.

January: Gráinne Dwyer (Basketball). The Thurles woman won her fifth National Cup medal and third MVP (Most Valuable Player) award from the last four finals when Glanmire beat Courtyard Liffey Celtics 61-48, Dwyer's outstanding form helping put the Cork club on course for its third consecutive league and cup double.

February: Paula Fitzpatrick (Rugby). In the absence of the injured Niamh Briggs, Fitzpatrick captained the Irish team to victory in the opening four games of their Six Nations campaign, setting up a Grand Slam decider against England on St Patrick's Day. It wasn't to be, England much the stronger side on the day, but the team will have taken encouragement from their results and their runners-up finish as they prepare for next month's World Cup.

March: Aoife Cassidy (Camogie). Playing alongside her sisters Eilis and Brona, Aoife Cassidy captained Derry club Slaughtneil, from a townland made up of just 350 homes, to their first All Ireland Senior Camogie Club Championship and only the second ever for Ulster when they beat Galway's Sarsfields at Croke Park.

April: Jessica Harrington (Horse Racing) and Chloe Magee (Badminton). In the space of a month Harrington completed the Triple Crown of Cheltenham's great championship races, Sizing John winning the Gold Cup to add to her previous successes in the Champion Hurdle and Champion Chase, and then won the Irish Grand National for the first time with Our Duke. "Not bad for a 70-year-old," as she put it herself. Magee, meanwhile, became the first Irish woman to win a European Championship medal in badminton, partnering brother Sam to bronze in the mixed doubles in Denmark.

May: Leona Maguire (Golf). Even before she won the British Amateur Championship in June, Maguire had been added to our 2017 list after an outstanding season with Duke University that earned her multiple awards, including becoming the first player to win the prestigious Annika Award twice. The world amateur number one competes in the US Open next week and the British Open in August, so the year might only be warming up.