At the start of day five of the Olympic swimming programme Ireland were lying sixth on the medal table, thanks to the gold medal won by Daniel Wiffen in the 800m freestyle on Tuesday and the bronze medal won by Mona McSharry in the 100m breaststroke just 24 hours earlier.
That left them one spot ahead of France in seventh, and up on Canada in fifth. Australia and the USA were at that point leading the way. Day five did shake things up considerably; Leon Marchand won an incredible two individual gold medals for France in the same session, the first time any swimmer has pulled that off in the Olympics since 1976, winning the 200m butterfly, then the 200m breaststroke.
By the end of the session, Pan Zhanle from China had also set the first world record in the Olympic pool, lowering his own 100m freestyle world record from 46.80 seconds to a sensational 46.40.
But it had marked the best ever start by a combination of Irish swimmers in Olympic swimming history.
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McSharry was back inside the Paris La Défense Arena just over 36 hours after her bronze-medal swim in the 100m breaststroke, this time moving up to the 200m distance, and although progressing to the semi-finals later on Wednesday night, her sixth-place finish in 2:24.48 wasn’t enough to make the eight-woman final this time.
McSharry ended up ranked 11th, down on her 2:23.98 time from the heat earlier in the morning, where she progressed into the semi-finals ranked seventh overall.
Starting in the second semi-final, that semi-final was soon dominated by the US duo of Kate Douglass and Lily King, along with Tatjana Smith from South Africa, who won gold in the 100m distance. McSharry found herself drifted off their pace by the 50m mark, and never quite got herself into contention.
Douglass took the win in 2:19.74, ahead of Smith (2:19.94) and King (2:23.25), and it was evident the exertions of McSharry from the previous days was starting to take some toll.
“Definitely not my best, was hoping to make it two final,” she said. “Something went wrong during that race, I just didn’t swim fast enough, and I’m upset with that.”
She’ll have one more go in the Olympic pool, part of the women’s medley relay this weekend. In her heat, she’d finished third in 2:23.98, Smith winning that in 2:21.57
“I got to bed about 4.30am-5, but I did sleep in until 10.30. It just took a while for the mind to calm down,” she said of her late night on Monday. “I still haven’t actually watched back the race [100m breaststroke], I did watch some of the interviews, but started crying again, So that was enough of that. I’ll review everything when all the swimming is over.”
Three years ago in Tokyo, McSharry became the first Irish swimmer since Michelle Smith de Bruin to make an Olympic final, when she progressed to the 100m breaststroke final, where she finished eighth in 1:06.94.
In Paris, Irish swimmers had made three finals already, Wiffen and McSharry also joined by Ellen Walshe, who made the 400m medley final, where she finished in eighth.
John Rudd, Swim Ireland’s performance director, spoke about that progress for Irish swimming
“It feels terrific, and there’s a lot of people that do a lot of stuff that people don’t know about,” said Rudd, the former schoolteacher from Plymouth.
“The stuff behind the scenes that athletes benefit from, the system that develops, and for all the people that sat at a desk or on a pool deck or in a gym somewhere, doing their little bit, the last 48 hours is because of all of that. As well as surpremly talented athletes who are all hitting the best days at the right time.”
Rudd also made clear the success of McSharry and Wiffen and others did not happen overnight.
“Well it’s only an overnight success if you’re the person who flicks on the Olympic Games once every four years and goes ‘oh look, there’s some swimmers winning medals’, but Mona McSharry is a world junior champion from 2017, Daniel Wiffen only earlier this year was a world champion
“It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise if they do well in an Olympic Games in the same year. So it’s not an overnight success, it’s the sort that bubbles away in the background, and then boom, every four years the whole world gets to see it
“What I’d hope is that is six months’ time people are still talking about it, and still inspired by it.”
He also described Wiffen as having “a blend of cerebral qualities, emotional qualities, along with a tremendous physiological quality.”
He added: “And outside of that he has exceptional self-belief and confidence. One of the highest levels of self-belief I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t cross over into arrogance or conceit. He applies that on a day-to-day basis. It is rare he has a bad day at work.”
A few more days work to go.
