Following a gold medal win in the 50m Breaststroke last night Mona McSharry continued her impressive form at the European Junior Swimming Championships in Israel today to make a second Breaststroke Final. McSharry, swimming in the 200m Breaststroke, eased through preliminaries winning her heat in 2:29.63 and secured her place in this evening’s semi-final in third place overall. This afternoon, swimming in the second semi-final, the 16-year-old lowered her time to 2:29.42 to advance to tomorrow’s Final in third place.
Speaking after the race and the excitement of last night’s win McSharry said “It was tough, I didn’t get to sleep until late enough but I just had to pull myself back together. I did really well and I was really happy with the swim. It’s difficult to jump from the extreme of the 50m having to stretch it out to the 200m, I’m still learning how to do the 200m but I definitely think I did it well this evening. I’m going to try my hardest (tomorrow), I’d love to medal, it would be amazing especially as I came 6th last year”.
The 200m Breaststroke Final will take place at 4.09pm tomorrow (Friday). Great Britain’s Layla Black is the fastest qualifier in 2:27.42.
Mona Spoke to Trish Mayon of Swim Ireland after the 200m semi-final:
Day 2 Heats/Finals Results:
Men 100m Freestyle
Jack McMillan 51.84 (38th)
Robbie Powell 51.25 (24th)
Women 400m Freestyle
Rachel Bethel 4:20.28 (15th)
Men 200m Butterfly
Robbie Powell 2:10.26 (30th)
Women 200m Breaststroke
Mona McSharry H 2:29.63 (3rd) SF 2:29.42 (3rd)
Niamh Coyne 2:34.54 (18th)
