Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
MONA MCSHARRY ADMITS that Paris 2024 was “most likely” her last Olympic Games.
McSharry won a brilliant bronze medal in the 100m breaststroke on Monday, but says she is unlikely to feature at the next Games in LA in 2028.
The Sligo star spoke about her future plans after signing off from Paris with the 4x100m medley relay — where she set an Irish record alongside Ellen Walshe, Danielle Hill and Grace Davidson.
The men’s 4x100m medley relay team also set a national record in their heat, but both quartets missed out on qualifying for the finals.
“It’s been unbelievable,” McSharry told RTÉ in a relay team interview.
“I couldn’t have asked for anything better. With all the training and the dreams and knowing that this is most likely my last Olympics, I’m really happy to be able to come away with a medal.”
“It’s not!” Walshe interjected, with Hill joking about a possible breakdancing appearance.
McSharry laughed, but added: “I’ll be excited to go to LA and watch these ladies shine.”
Paris 2024: Paul O'Flynn speaks to the Irish team who are fresh from breaking the national 4x100m medley record. Grace Davison, at 16, is eager for more, while pressure grows on Mona McSharry to stay. #Paris2024
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) August 3, 2024
📺 Watch https://t.co/XnOP6grnB7
📱Updates https://t.co/7oDcUYslbX pic.twitter.com/CNlnr6pqHe
In a separate interview with the written press, the pressure heightened on the 23-year-old to go again.
“I think there’s so much more for this team,” Walshe said at one point.
“There’s something really special in there with the four girls. I think the only thing we have to do is convince Mona to hang around. That’s a lot easier said than done!”
“No comment,” McSharry responded with a laugh, to The 42.
“I don’t know, four years is a big commitment so I think from this point on, I’m just taking it probably one year at a time. Right now, I would say no [to another Olympics], but it’s hard to make a decision like that.
“I know I’m swimming until next summer and then we’ll see how I feel after that. Right now I’ll be going to support the ladies.”
Of more immediate concern is her homecoming.
“It’s gonna be really exciting,” the Grange native said. “Now that I’m done with competition, I can fully enjoy and just bathe in all the proud people back home and just let them show me love, so it’ll be great.”
Asked for any requests, food was the running joke.
“When the community comes together to show how proud they are of me and swimming, it’s just great to see and I couldn’t ask for anything else really.”
- With reporting from Sinead O’Carroll in Paris
Written by Emma Duffy and originally published on The 42 whose award-winning team produces original content that you won’t find anywhere else: on GAA, League of Ireland, women’s sport and boxing, as well as our game-changing rugby coverage, all with an Irish eye. Subscribe here.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
In 2008 1.7tonne was worth 650million,In 2023 2.3tonne is worth 157million.
Cost of living crisis must be hitting the drug dealers also these days.
@John Sleator: That’s a good one john
Street Value……I do wonder what streets the Guards are buying their drugs on……
@Shane Scanlan: asking for a friend?
@Shane Scanlan: “what street do you buy your drugs on? Because it’s not the same street I buy my drugs on!”
@Shane Scanlan: I don’t know but if they ever want a better deal then they should go somewhere else
@Shane Scanlan:at that price their probably selling around Temple bar
Pointless waste of money.
Note that there will be no follow up reporting – there never is – on the actual impact of things like this.
We need information.
How much do drugs polices cost taxpayers? (millions a year at least)
What impact do they have on availability of drugs? (85% of drugs aren’t intercepted, so the educated guess would be that the impact is negligible and very tempory at best – more likely the impact is closer to zero)
Relative to their cost, bearing in mind how badly we need money to eg pay carers, what is the point of these policies?
Not reducing supply. Supply is unaffected.
Not reducing deaths. We have twice the OD deaths of Portugal, which has twice our population.
So what’s the point?
I’m all for letting the lads shoot machine guns into the ocean, but surely that can’t justify the cost.
@Chris O’Brien: seeing as a kilo starts for about 2k from it’s point of origin the original value of the cocaine probably cost less than the surveillance alone.
@Butters: the real cost is the impact, not how much it costs to make them. It doesn’t cost much to make bullets, but they do a lot of harm. However, I would not assume to know the impact this haul would make or not make, I’m just thinking about the desperately addicted people here.
Great work by all involved, maybe tip of the iceberg but it keeps some of the filth off our streets.
@Eamon: Why are people so negative. A budget amount is given for all the law enforcement agencies for the purpose of detecting and seizing drugs entering Ireland. While I agree that drugs are imported every week into Ireland a seizure like this, no matter how small people think it is, should be celebrate. How many lives has this seizure saved ?. And I don’t mean deaths from drugs. There are serious OCG running riot in this country and importation of drugs is just 1 of their sources of income. They reek havoc every where, people smuggling for slavery, prostitution, extreme porn. Let’s celebrate 1 up for the good guys
On my way to Wexford for 2 x bags of strawberries…
@Paddy: Double dips ? On blotter paper?
@Brian Keelty: showing your age there I think lol
We should keep and it sell ourselves to pay off our debt. By bedtime tonight the Garda will estimate the haul to be now worth 600 trillion bajilloon euros.
Has the value of cocaine decreased since 2008? I’d have thought that it went up.
Great money in Drugs.. Surprised Michael and Paschal don’t have a tax tied to it….
Then they’d know the drug dealers
Probably bound for the UK and we done them a favour
By the time it’s cut up Irish dtyle6itll be 10 x that.
Liked and shared hope I win!
have your say