December 18, 2021

Tokyo 2020 Olympian Mona McSharry on Saturday swam her third Irish Senior Record of the week to make the 100m Individual Medley Semi-Finals at the 15th FINA World Short Course Swimming Championships in Abu Dhabi.

Taking place at the Etihad Arena, the Championships are world swimming’s finale of 2021 and the culmination of the short course (25m pool) season.

McSharry, who finished an agonising fourth in Friday’s 50m Breaststroke Final, became the first Irish woman to swim 100m Individual Medley in under a minute when coming through her heat in 59.65.

She beat her own Irish Senior Record of 1:00.34 set in December 2018.

The Sligo swimmer, based at University of Tennessee, finished third in her heat and goes into the Semi-Finals on Saturday afternoon ranked joint 15^th overall.

Mona McSharry said: “It definitely hurt coming home but it was a really good time. My target was to break the minute. I’ve kinda had that on my mind for a couple of years. I’m really happy with how that went. Hopefully I can improve even more.”

The 100m Individual Medley Semi-Finals begin at 15:08 Irish time. McSharry is also set to be in action on Sunday morning in the heats of 100m Breaststroke. This is the event in which she became Ireland’s first Olympic finalist in 25 years at Tokyo 2020.

Also swimming this morning’s heats was Tyrone swimmer Calum Bain. Based at Stirling University in Scotland, he was bang on his lifetime best time of 21.61 in the 50m Freestyle heats. He finished 20^thoverall and is scheduled to be back at the Etihad Arena on Sunday for the 50m Butterfly heats.

Earlier 400m Individual Medley Silver Medallist Ellen Walshe clocked 26.33 in her 50m Butterfly heats to finish 22^nd. Her next events come on Monday when she is scheduled to swim 100m Butterfly and 200m Individual Medley.

All the action can be followed via fina.org.