THE ORIGINAL PLAN was for Mona McSharry to retire after the Paris Olympics.
Even when she was a teenager, the Sligo native had earmarked the 2024 Games as her last.
This attitude did not change in the run-up to the big event last year.
Some might have considered it a fitting finale for the talented swimmer. She won her first Olympic medal — a bronze in the 100 metre breaststroke — that would have capped off a brilliant career.
As an elite athlete, she has had a perfectionist mindset of always believing she could do better. That nagging feeling is unlikely to go away whenever she decides to call it a day.
McSharry had planned to compete in the early part of 2025, having committed to the college before finishing up.
She had studied and competed at the University of Tennessee, graduating last year with a degree in Kinesiology, while she is now undertaking a master’s in Leadership, Education and Communication, which is due to finish in May 2026.
The 25-year-old had expected the National Collegiate Athletic Association swimming championships in March to be her last meet.
But after taking a couple of months off from swimming following the Olympics to travel, McSharry began to understand how much she missed the sport.
“I just didn’t realise how much I would just kind of fall back into training life and being an athlete, and how much I would enjoy it,” she tells The 42. “And I think the training, more than the racing, because that’s what you do. 95% of what you do is training, and so I think if you don’t enjoy that, good luck trying to race.”
After the NCAAs, McSharry decided to compete in the World Championships. She missed out on a place in the 100m breaststroke final and failed to progress from the 50m heats, before having to withdraw from the competition owing to a stomach bug.
Yet if anything, this disappointment galvanised McSharry.
She then met with her psychologist in Tennessee last September, the first time they had a one-on-one session in over 12 months and since before the Olympics.
Revisiting the details of Paris “reignited something” in the Irish swimmer.
“I walked out of that meeting just being like: ‘LA ’28 sounds like something I want to do.’ And that was really the first point where I really thought about [the upcoming Olympics],” McSharry recalls.
“Before that, I was just like: ‘Oh, I’ll do another year. I’m not thinking about LA. I can stop whenever I want.’
“But that moment was really like a light bulb. Wow, there’s still fire inside. I’m still excited, and I’m still pursuing the goal of being better.”
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Ireland's Mona McSharry celebrates winning bronze after the Women's 100m Breaststroke Final at the Paris La Defense Arena. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
McSharry’s performances since then have vindicated the decision.
In October, she took part in all three stops at the World Aquatics World Cup in North America, along with fellow Irish athlete Ellen Walshe.
She came away from the experience having won five medals and broken five Irish records.
In addition, earlier this month, McSharry won both the 50m and 100m breaststroke events at the International Swimmeeting in Bolzano, Italy.
****
Since leaving her home in Grange and moving to study in America over five years ago, McSharry has developed both as an athlete and a person.
Having a rescue Pit Bull Terrier as a pet has helped.
“The first year I was here, I obviously didn’t have it, and I probably didn’t leave my dorm room unless I was going to training. So it’s nice getting the fresh air,” she says.
The Irish star has spoken in the past of feeling “trapped” and “hiding from myself the fact that I wasn’t happy in swimming,” with it all coming to a head 12 months on from the Tokyo Olympics.
She is consequently well aware of the importance of the psychological side of sport, along with its physical demands.
And winning that Olympic medal, McSharry adds, has not necessarily changed her mentality and constant yearning to improve.
“I wouldn’t say it gives me more confidence,” she explains. “I would still say that I struggle with imposter syndrome as much as I used to.
“I always feel, when I’m in the call room, or when I’m going up for a race and I’m racing against people, I’m like: ‘Oh my gosh, they’re so good. They’re way better than me.’
“In my mind, I’m always the underdog. The medal just got packed up into a box for me and stored in my mind. It’s a great achievement, but it doesn’t change me.”
McSharry also rejects the idea that the momentous occasion in Paris will define her career.
“I think there are just so many different experiences, people, there’s such a bigger compass of what I’ve done in sport, what sport has done for me, trying to inspire the next generation. All of that comes to mind when I think about it. And so if I had to retire, I would be thinking about all of that stuff collectively, rather than just the medal.”
And McSharry believes those feelings of insecurity, or “imposter syndrome” as she puts it, are not necessarily a negative — in a way, they have helped propel the star to extraordinary heights.
“Sometimes I wish I backed myself a little more,” she says. “I will never be the person who walks around with a big chest and ‘I’m an Olympic medallist,’ I don’t have it in me.
“But I wish I could pull confidence from that better and be like: ‘No, I’m just as capable as the rest of the people here to compete.’ And it’s not that I don’t think I am. Sometimes I still feel like: ‘Wow, I made the final, that’s really good. Good job.’
“Whereas, [you should think]: ‘No, you should be in the final. And yes, it’s going to be really hard.’ It’s not like you should easily be in the final, but you’re at that level, you should be there, you’re competing for the podium.
“I just wish sometimes I could look at it [differently], and it’s definitely something that I can change myself — it’s all about mental talk. But it’s interesting how your mind always, at least for me, puts you down a little bit.
“If you asked me when I was 16 or 17, how it would feel to be an Olympic medalist, I’d probably be like: Oh my God, it’s probably the best feeling ever, you feel amazing.’ But, after the moment of it, maybe a week later, it wears off, and you forget about it a little bit, or at least, I do.”
Ireland’s Flagbearers Fintan McCarthy and Mona McSharry during the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
So are these doubts or confidence issues commonplace among elite swimmers in McSharry’s experience?
“I think there’s both, and honestly, probably an array of in between. I’ve met really confident swimmers, and they back themselves 100% and I think that’s great because that’s what fuels you. That’s how you motivate yourself. And then I’ve also spoken with swimmers who are probably of a similar mindset to me, where you create this big goal in your mind — this is the goal, and then you reach it, and it’s like: ‘Okay, what’s above that? What’s next? That’s okay, that’s done.’
“And so I think it just depends on the personality and the person. I’ve seen so many different types of athletes, and I think as long as you’re harnessing what works for you, that’s going to be what works for you.
“I think if you see a super confident athlete, you’re like: Okay, well, I want to be like that. I think if you’re trying so hard to be that athlete, and you’re more of a quiet [type of] confidence, that can waste energy as well. So I think it’s just about finding what gives you confidence in the way that you can best feel confident and work with that and ignore whatever else is going on around you.”
So for McSharry, having free access to a sports psychologist on campus has been one of the many benefits of attending college in America.
“Even just visualisation alone, which is technically something you can do by yourself, is such a benefit, because you’re basically just practising your race in your mind. And it is amazing how you can spike the same feelings you would feel in a race while you’re just imagining it.
“And so I think that that alone can be really important, because it just gives your mind something more firm and solid to revert to when you come to race day. For the 100m breaststroke, for example, I’m not really doing flat-out 100m breaststroke races every week at training. We’ll do the first 50, we’ll do the last 50, we’ll do some other timed things, but you’re never going all out for the full 100m breaststroke race mode that often.
“And so I think that if you can visualise your race more and more, you’re just committing it to memory more. And that obviously starts with knowing what you’re going to do in your race. So for me, I know that that’s 19 strokes out, returning, and then we’re 25 back, and there are more cues that I have in there.”
McSharry is aiming to continue swimming until the 2028 Olympics. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
And while McSharry has long been aware of the importance of sports psychology, she says it was only in the run-up to the last Olympics that she fully embraced it.
“Every day I was doing stuff — first thing when you wake up in the morning, with just walking my dog and being present, doing the mental part of psychology, or the mental part of the race, it takes a long time to build.
“It’s definitely not something that you can walk in and in a week be like: ‘Okay, I feel better.’ And I learned that over a year, and it was just so great to see that being present got easier, visualisation got easier.
“And I think that that was really exciting, and it definitely helped going into the race, and even just being at the Olympics full stop, and being able to calm nerves and relax, and I think that that’s really important.
“When we race at the Olympics, you’ve got heats and semis on the one day. So that’s a pretty busy day. You get up in the morning, you do your process, you race, warm down, nap, food, process, race, warm down, nap. So your whole day is that.
“But then the next day, you’re not racing until the evening of the final. So you have a whole day, you should be relaxing, you shouldn’t be doing too much, but then you want to do stuff that will keep your mind busy, because you don’t want your mind to run away with all of these: ‘What if this happens? What if this happens?’
“So I think having visualisation for that was so important. Because if there was any point where I felt myself getting like: ‘Oh my god, I’m racing the finals tonight, this is really important,’ I can calm myself and I’m okay. And that was so vital, and I still have that, and that’ll always be there, and it’s something that I can go back to for anything in life.”
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'I would still say that I struggle with imposter syndrome'
THE ORIGINAL PLAN was for Mona McSharry to retire after the Paris Olympics.
Even when she was a teenager, the Sligo native had earmarked the 2024 Games as her last.
This attitude did not change in the run-up to the big event last year.
Some might have considered it a fitting finale for the talented swimmer. She won her first Olympic medal — a bronze in the 100 metre breaststroke — that would have capped off a brilliant career.
As an elite athlete, she has had a perfectionist mindset of always believing she could do better. That nagging feeling is unlikely to go away whenever she decides to call it a day.
McSharry had planned to compete in the early part of 2025, having committed to the college before finishing up.
She had studied and competed at the University of Tennessee, graduating last year with a degree in Kinesiology, while she is now undertaking a master’s in Leadership, Education and Communication, which is due to finish in May 2026.
The 25-year-old had expected the National Collegiate Athletic Association swimming championships in March to be her last meet.
But after taking a couple of months off from swimming following the Olympics to travel, McSharry began to understand how much she missed the sport.
“I just didn’t realise how much I would just kind of fall back into training life and being an athlete, and how much I would enjoy it,” she tells The 42. “And I think the training, more than the racing, because that’s what you do. 95% of what you do is training, and so I think if you don’t enjoy that, good luck trying to race.”
After the NCAAs, McSharry decided to compete in the World Championships. She missed out on a place in the 100m breaststroke final and failed to progress from the 50m heats, before having to withdraw from the competition owing to a stomach bug.
Yet if anything, this disappointment galvanised McSharry.
She then met with her psychologist in Tennessee last September, the first time they had a one-on-one session in over 12 months and since before the Olympics.
Revisiting the details of Paris “reignited something” in the Irish swimmer.
“I walked out of that meeting just being like: ‘LA ’28 sounds like something I want to do.’ And that was really the first point where I really thought about [the upcoming Olympics],” McSharry recalls.
“Before that, I was just like: ‘Oh, I’ll do another year. I’m not thinking about LA. I can stop whenever I want.’
“But that moment was really like a light bulb. Wow, there’s still fire inside. I’m still excited, and I’m still pursuing the goal of being better.”
McSharry’s performances since then have vindicated the decision.
In October, she took part in all three stops at the World Aquatics World Cup in North America, along with fellow Irish athlete Ellen Walshe.
She came away from the experience having won five medals and broken five Irish records.
In addition, earlier this month, McSharry won both the 50m and 100m breaststroke events at the International Swimmeeting in Bolzano, Italy.
****
Since leaving her home in Grange and moving to study in America over five years ago, McSharry has developed both as an athlete and a person.
Having a rescue Pit Bull Terrier as a pet has helped.
“The first year I was here, I obviously didn’t have it, and I probably didn’t leave my dorm room unless I was going to training. So it’s nice getting the fresh air,” she says.
The Irish star has spoken in the past of feeling “trapped” and “hiding from myself the fact that I wasn’t happy in swimming,” with it all coming to a head 12 months on from the Tokyo Olympics.
She is consequently well aware of the importance of the psychological side of sport, along with its physical demands.
And winning that Olympic medal, McSharry adds, has not necessarily changed her mentality and constant yearning to improve.
“I wouldn’t say it gives me more confidence,” she explains. “I would still say that I struggle with imposter syndrome as much as I used to.
“I always feel, when I’m in the call room, or when I’m going up for a race and I’m racing against people, I’m like: ‘Oh my gosh, they’re so good. They’re way better than me.’
“In my mind, I’m always the underdog. The medal just got packed up into a box for me and stored in my mind. It’s a great achievement, but it doesn’t change me.”
McSharry also rejects the idea that the momentous occasion in Paris will define her career.
“I think there are just so many different experiences, people, there’s such a bigger compass of what I’ve done in sport, what sport has done for me, trying to inspire the next generation. All of that comes to mind when I think about it. And so if I had to retire, I would be thinking about all of that stuff collectively, rather than just the medal.”
And McSharry believes those feelings of insecurity, or “imposter syndrome” as she puts it, are not necessarily a negative — in a way, they have helped propel the star to extraordinary heights.
“Sometimes I wish I backed myself a little more,” she says. “I will never be the person who walks around with a big chest and ‘I’m an Olympic medallist,’ I don’t have it in me.
“But I wish I could pull confidence from that better and be like: ‘No, I’m just as capable as the rest of the people here to compete.’ And it’s not that I don’t think I am. Sometimes I still feel like: ‘Wow, I made the final, that’s really good. Good job.’
“Whereas, [you should think]: ‘No, you should be in the final. And yes, it’s going to be really hard.’ It’s not like you should easily be in the final, but you’re at that level, you should be there, you’re competing for the podium.
“I just wish sometimes I could look at it [differently], and it’s definitely something that I can change myself — it’s all about mental talk. But it’s interesting how your mind always, at least for me, puts you down a little bit.
“If you asked me when I was 16 or 17, how it would feel to be an Olympic medalist, I’d probably be like: Oh my God, it’s probably the best feeling ever, you feel amazing.’ But, after the moment of it, maybe a week later, it wears off, and you forget about it a little bit, or at least, I do.”
So are these doubts or confidence issues commonplace among elite swimmers in McSharry’s experience?
“I think there’s both, and honestly, probably an array of in between. I’ve met really confident swimmers, and they back themselves 100% and I think that’s great because that’s what fuels you. That’s how you motivate yourself. And then I’ve also spoken with swimmers who are probably of a similar mindset to me, where you create this big goal in your mind — this is the goal, and then you reach it, and it’s like: ‘Okay, what’s above that? What’s next? That’s okay, that’s done.’
“And so I think it just depends on the personality and the person. I’ve seen so many different types of athletes, and I think as long as you’re harnessing what works for you, that’s going to be what works for you.
“I think if you see a super confident athlete, you’re like: Okay, well, I want to be like that. I think if you’re trying so hard to be that athlete, and you’re more of a quiet [type of] confidence, that can waste energy as well. So I think it’s just about finding what gives you confidence in the way that you can best feel confident and work with that and ignore whatever else is going on around you.”
So for McSharry, having free access to a sports psychologist on campus has been one of the many benefits of attending college in America.
“Even just visualisation alone, which is technically something you can do by yourself, is such a benefit, because you’re basically just practising your race in your mind. And it is amazing how you can spike the same feelings you would feel in a race while you’re just imagining it.
“And so I think that that alone can be really important, because it just gives your mind something more firm and solid to revert to when you come to race day. For the 100m breaststroke, for example, I’m not really doing flat-out 100m breaststroke races every week at training. We’ll do the first 50, we’ll do the last 50, we’ll do some other timed things, but you’re never going all out for the full 100m breaststroke race mode that often.
“And so I think that if you can visualise your race more and more, you’re just committing it to memory more. And that obviously starts with knowing what you’re going to do in your race. So for me, I know that that’s 19 strokes out, returning, and then we’re 25 back, and there are more cues that I have in there.”
And while McSharry has long been aware of the importance of sports psychology, she says it was only in the run-up to the last Olympics that she fully embraced it.
“Every day I was doing stuff — first thing when you wake up in the morning, with just walking my dog and being present, doing the mental part of psychology, or the mental part of the race, it takes a long time to build.
“It’s definitely not something that you can walk in and in a week be like: ‘Okay, I feel better.’ And I learned that over a year, and it was just so great to see that being present got easier, visualisation got easier.
“And I think that that was really exciting, and it definitely helped going into the race, and even just being at the Olympics full stop, and being able to calm nerves and relax, and I think that that’s really important.
“When we race at the Olympics, you’ve got heats and semis on the one day. So that’s a pretty busy day. You get up in the morning, you do your process, you race, warm down, nap, food, process, race, warm down, nap. So your whole day is that.
“But then the next day, you’re not racing until the evening of the final. So you have a whole day, you should be relaxing, you shouldn’t be doing too much, but then you want to do stuff that will keep your mind busy, because you don’t want your mind to run away with all of these: ‘What if this happens? What if this happens?’
“So I think having visualisation for that was so important. Because if there was any point where I felt myself getting like: ‘Oh my god, I’m racing the finals tonight, this is really important,’ I can calm myself and I’m okay. And that was so vital, and I still have that, and that’ll always be there, and it’s something that I can go back to for anything in life.”
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Interview Los Angeles Olympics Medal Mona McSharry Paris Olympics Psychology Swimming