“Dreams do come true!”
The words of Mona McSharry after becoming just the second Irish swimmer to win an Olympic medal with a brilliant swim to secure bronze in the women’s 100 metres breaststroke final in Paris.
McSharry took bronze by the narrowest of margins, just 0.01 seconds ahead of both Italy’s Benedetta Pilato and the USA’s Lilly King.
[ Mona McSharry wins brilliant Olympics bronze in 100m breaststrokeOpens in new window ]
The Co Sligo swimmer came into the final ranked second fastest overall, and ahead of some of the best event specialists of all time. But making the podium was still an extremely tall order in such a competitive field.
McSharry started strongly and kept in touch with the winner, Tatjana Smith from South Africa and China’s reigning World champion Tang Qianting who took the silver medal.
[ As it happened: Mona McSharry wins bronze medal in 100m breaststroke finalOpens in new window ]
But Pilato and the King closed in as the wall beckoned, leaving McSharry to wonder if she had done enough.
She had. Just.
And shared the moment with gold medallist Smith.
“This isn’t something that little me, dreaming of just going to the Olympics, really thought was possible,” she explained afterwards.
“There are quite a number of people here supporting me which is amazing. It’s great to have them here, I missed that in Tokyo.”
