McSharry and Hill Break National Records
Mona McSharry starred once again at the first finals session of the Irish National Team Trials in Dublin.
McSharry, along with Daniel Wiffen (800m Freestyle), Shane Ryan (100m Backstroke) and Darragh Greene (100m Breaststroke) had all gone under the FINA Olympic Consideration Time (OCT) in this morning’s heats and while McSharry and Greene were both under that time again McSharry lowered her newly minted Irish Record knocking .68 off this morning’s time of 1:06.97 in 1:06.29.
McSharry commented ‘I think it just shows I was free to race and not worry about the time. I was working on trying something a little bit different. It was a completely different race strategy to this morning, and it just worked to my advantage.
It was really nice to have the opportunity to experience that and test it out and see if it worked. I am going to go home and analyse the 100, but honestly I’m really happy with how I competed in the 100 and I have done the job I came here to do.’
In that 100m Breaststroke, National Centre Dublin’s Niamh Coyne finished second to McSharry, moving closer to the consideration time of 1:07.07 in 1:07.58 and will have one more opportunity at it in tomorrow’s final.
Danielle Hill impressed in the 100m Backstroke with a new Irish Senior Record of 1:00.48. The Larne swimmer knocked .42 off her previous best of 1:00.90 and is now just .23 off the Olympic standard.
Hill will go again in Wednesday evening’s final.
19-year-old Eoin Corby of National Centre Limerick took another step on the road to Tokyo and now just needs to find .23 to meet the OCT. Corby had swum a personal best 1:00.23 in this morning’s heats and knocked another .08 off that this evening touching in 1:00.15. National Centre Dublin’s Darragh Greene, having swam a new Irish Record of 59.76 this morning, will be the top seed for tomorrow’s final after another OCT swim of 59.86.
In the Men’s 100m Backstroke Larne’s Conor Ferguson topped the semi-finals in a best time of 54.32. Shane Ryan, who matched the OCT of 53.85 this morning, was second in 54.91.
The Men’s 200m Butterfly semi-final saw National Centre Dublin’s Brendan Hyland control the race to win in 1:57.85. Hyland has a best time of 1:56.55 and will need to knock .07 off that tomorrow to qualify for the Tokyo Games.
Jack McMillan will go again tomorrow in search of the OCT in the 200m Freestyle. The Bangor man won the semi-finals in 1:47.68 but has a best time of 1:47.10, just .08 off the FINA OCT of 1:47.02. Second to fourth place included Finn McGeever in 1:48.13, Jordan Sloan 1:48.69 and Gerry Quinn 1:48.87 which bodes well for the Irish Men’s 4x200m Freestyle Relay who currently sit just inside Olympic Qualification at 16th place in the World.
NOTES:
- The Trials are primarily open to Performance athletes currently training in recognised onshore training bubbles in the National Centre (Dublin) at the National Aquatic Centre, the National Centre (Limerick) at the University of Limerick and at Bangor Aurora Aquatic & Leisure Complex, as well as those identified athletes of similar standing who are living and training offshore.
- The competition will comprise of a full Olympic individual event programme with heats, semi-finals, and finals in all 50m, 100m and 200m events and heats and finals in 400m, 800m and 1500m events. It will give our top athletes several qualification opportunities and will provide some very exciting swims over the course of the meet.
- The meet will be live streamed on RTE Player and will be available to view worldwide.
