NCAA Preview: A Van, Nationwide Parks and a Deserved Spoil – How Mona McSharry Balanced Lifestyles After Paris
Irrespective of what took place in Paris, Mona McSharry knew the place she’d spend the autumn of 2024.
The Irish world deliberate to take the semester off from the College of Tennessee. Along with her canine and a pal, McSharry had plans to hire a camper van and journey in the course of the western part of america, hitting nationwide parks and new towns, doing anything else however the day-to-day routine tethered to a pool that has directed her existence since age 12.
If issues went poorly in Paris, McSharry reasoned, she’d have a commute to sit up for. In the event that they went neatly, she’d get area to savor the revel in with out returning immediately to the grind.
With all that relaxation and game, McSharry additionally glimpsed a possible blueprint for the following 4 years. She’s again in Knoxville, readying for her ultimate school postseason at age 24. And whilst she hasn’t made a concrete dedication for the 2028 Olympics, she no less than has a contemporary standpoint on how other the following cycle may well be.
“I think I’m in a place in the sport right now where I am not a ‘must swim all the time’ person, like you take a week off and then go, ‘Oh my god, I miss the water,’” McSharry mentioned. “I’m not really there anymore. I love swimming and I love being an athlete, but I’m also OK accepting the break and enjoying that, too.”
The Paris ‘Fever Dream’
Mona McSharry of Eire and Tatjana Smith of South Africa react after competing within the 100m Breaststroke Girls Ultimate right through the Paris 2024 Olympic Video games at Los angeles Protection Enviornment in Paris (France), July 29, 2024. Tatjana Smith positioned first profitable the gold medal, Mona McSharry positioned 3rd profitable the bronze medal.
McSharry’s 2nd Olympics exceeded all expectancies. She was once a part of an all-time ultimate within the ladies’s 100 breaststroke, touching 3rd in 1:05.59, .01 forward of Lilly King and Benedetta Pilato in a box the place six tenths blanketed the highest six finishers. The bronze made Olympic historical past for Eire, whose handiest different swimming medals had are available 1996, belonging to Michelle Smith, later banned for anti-doping violations.
The “fever dream,” as McSharry known as it, handiest compounded because the week went on. Daniel Wiffen gained gold within the males’s 800 freestyle, then added bronze within the 1500 loose. McSharry and Wiffen served as Eire’s flagbearers on the Final Ceremonies on the Stade de France.
It added as much as a storybook meet for the Sligo local, who’d been swimming since age 12, at all times taking a look towards this meet within the thick of her profession. However even goals may also be laborious, which is why McSharry deliberate for time away to procedure and decompress.
She and her buddy rented a changed van with a unfastened plan to sojourn in the course of the West. For a stretch of 66 days, they lived out of the van whilst adventuring to one of the most nation’s maximum iconic herbal websites – Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon. McSharry fell in love with coastal Oregon, with its resemblance to Eire. Handiest 4 instances in that two-month span did McSharry spend an evening any place as opposed to the van, with a resort night time in San Francisco, one in Las Vegas, and a 48-hour commute again to Dublin for Group Eire’s Centenary Ball in early November. It fed a run of about 5 months the place McSharry didn’t do anything else extra in a pool than splash round.
The temporary go back to Eire necessitated McSharry conserving amongst her restricted van possessions her medal, which handiest supercharged the dichotomy she balanced. In a campsite close to the Redwoods, she was once simply the 20-something woman with the little brown canine, no longer the nationwide wearing icon. For any individual who can see the tip of her swimming profession and is weighing the consequences on her identification, it was once a possibility to discover different dimensions of who she needs to be. “I remember thinking back, or pulling out my medal, and honestly thinking, it was surreal,” she mentioned. “Like, did this actually happen?”
Quiet through nature, McSharry appreciates what Olympic status has introduced whilst acknowledging its calls for. The Irish swimming program has lengthy advocated for itself within the nation. Adolescence outreach from McSharry, Wiffen and others lengthy predated world medals, and the duty of a public profile was once not anything new. However going from the whirl of consideration after Paris to the quiet of broad open areas was once the grounding McSharry wanted, each for herself within the provide and her profession one day.
“I think having those little moments where I look back and realize that I did that was really nice,” she mentioned. “But then also being able to get away from it was nice too, because I don’t love the spotlight. I like it, and I appreciate it and I appreciate how excited the country gets, and I love to be able to show all the little kids that they can do it too. But then after a while, I’m like, Oh my gosh, I need to just be Mona. I can’t be the medalist for a second.”
Again to Actual Lifestyles
McSharry’s go back to Knoxville stunned her, too. She returned to coaching in January, with just a little apprehension as to how a two-hour follow or a weight room consultation may really feel. She hadn’t taken greater than a month off in a decade, and she or he’d final left UT in the most efficient form of her existence. Emotionally, she weathered bouts of FOMO within the fall – whether or not it was once fellow Olympians finishing their post-Paris breaks in September whilst she hiked the Columbia Gorge or fellow Woman Vols hitting highest instances at invitationals whilst she toured Zion Nationwide Park. She fearful what the bodily identical of that could be.
However the adjustment again into the swing of coaching wasn’t as mountainous as she feared.
Mona-McSharry. Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
“I threw myself back into it,” she mentioned. “I was like, I don’t have time to ease myself into it. We’re just going to go, and the first week was tough, just because I’m obviously slower. … But then a full week or two of nine swim sessions, and I felt like I was back into it, obviously not going quite as fast as what I normally do or maybe not just quite as much endurance, but I was pleasantly surprised by how well I readjusted to it.”
With out McSharry, the Volunteers rose to fourth within the country. They’re chasing {hardware} at NCAAs, the place Tennessee was once fourth final yr.
In the future after that, McSharry will finalize her intentions for 2028, which might come with the Global Championships this yr.
She purposefully resisted making any sweeping choices on her commute, no longer short of the halo of Paris or the euphoria of holiday to push towards a very rosy conclusion. However how she’s navigated those months may end up to be illuminating.
Swimming doesn’t need to be the entirety, McSharry is aware of. That’s bolstered through how a lot she’s discovered clear of the pool. As an alternative, it may be a part of a bigger entire.
“I think about life after swimming and kind of imagine what that’s going to look like,” she mentioned. “And I think that’s hard to visualize when you’re 15, 16, 17, because you’re in the depth of it. At least I was, and swimming was everything for me. … But I do think, especially after taking five months off and being able to come back into it, I recognize that it’s OK to take a week or two here and there and still be OK, and maybe fill up my cup with travel or just being able to relax and not be an athlete for a week and then still be able to race fast.”
