Mona McSharry has qualified fastest for this evening’s semi-finals in the 100 metres breaststroke at the World Junior Swimming Championships in Indianapolis today.
Her time of one minute 7.79 seconds sets her up nicely for this evening’s semi-finals, with the second round of heats getting underway shortly after 11.30pm Irish time.
Fellow Irish swimmer Niamh Coyne also qualified in the 16th and final position for the semi-finals after a swim-off against Belgian swummer.
The 17-year-old Grange native claimed Ireland’s first ever bronze medal at the championships in the 50 metres distance last night, and helped the Irish mixed medley relay team set a new national senior record in their sixth-placed finish.
McSharry, who swims with the Marlins Club in Ballyshannon, added the world junior bronze medal to her European gold from earlier in the summer after an extremely tight contest.
She touched in 30.97 seconds, behind USA’s Emily Weiss, who captured gold in 30.78, and Canada’s Faith Knelson, who was just six hundredths of a second ahead of McSharry for silver in 30.91 seconds.
McSharry then joined backstroke silver-medallist Conor Ferguson, Ellen Walshe and Robbie Powell in taking almost two seconds off the Irish senior record in the mixed medley relay, finishing in three minutes 52.38 seconds.
