Sinead O'Carroll Reports from Paris

“DREAM AS BIG as you can dream and anything is possible.”

Words spoken by Michael Phelps, the freakish American swimmer who collected medals and gathered world records as if they were 1p jellies and Pokémon cards between 2000 and 2016.

The Maryland native was giddy with inspirational quotes in Beijing 2008 because he had just matched a record held by Mark Spitz for 36 long years for the most amount of gold medals won by an individual at a single Games. 

It was a giant leap on the way to Phelps becoming the most successful and most decorated Olympian of all time. His time in that 100m butterfly race was 50.58 seconds. The guy who came second? Milorad Cavic. In 50.59.
0.01.  

One hundredth of a second.

History, science, sport – they turn on the little things. The microscopic. The unintended mistake. The gut-led decision. 

“When I did chop the last stroke, I thought that had cost me the race,” Phelps said at the time. “But it was actually the opposite. If I had glided, I would have been way too long. I took short, faster strokes to try to get my hand on the wall. I ended up making the right decision.”

Mona McSharry’s race in the 50m temporary pool of La Defense Arena last night was far from perfect.

She dove into the pool and her goggles filled up. 

‘Crap. But we’re going to keep going.’

Sport is about these tight races, she believes. This is fun. This is her having fun, she says. 

At the 50m mark, McSharry was in second place in a time of 30.56. Turning into the final length, it was impossible to call gold, never mind silver or bronze. 

The race visual technology looked like it was glitching throughout the 100m, so unable it was to keep up with the exchanging places of McSharry, Benedetta Pilato of Italy, South Africa’s Tatjana Smith and Qianting Tang from China.

The big screen at La Defense Arena and TVs across the world showed the Italian and Irish tricolours, the South Africa flag and the Chinese red-and-yellow switching between the gold, silver and bronze positions at every split.

The eight-strong field all made their way to the line with Lane One still very much in the mix. There were people to worry about everywhere, not just to one side of the filled-up goggle. 

‘Dig deep… keep pushing to the end’

McSharry’s end was marked by a time of 1:05.59. Pilato’s fingers hit the wall of Lane One in 1:05.60, inseparable from Rio Olympic champion Lilly King as the two finished in a dead heat for fourth. 
0.01. 

One hundredth of a second. 

“I’ve seen the three dots [signalling third] and I was just over the moon and then turned to see my time but honestly, in final races like this, the time doesn’t matter,” the 23-year-old Grange woman said after her medal ceremony. 

“It’s hands on wall first. You’re just racing what else is in the pool. And, thankfully, I was on the right side of that today.” 

Echoing a 23-year-old Phelps 16 years ago, she also told the nation, “I was a little girl from a tiny little village. I still am that little girl from Sligo and I was able to win a medal at the Olympics. So it just goes to show, you can do anything you put your mind to.”

During the medal ceremony she said her mind drifted to some of the training sessions that allowed her to find the inner strength needed to keep going until her green-tipped fingernails reached the wall. 

This was a plan nine years in the making. A ‘feeler’ Olympics in 2020 (turned ’21) before the pressure Games in 2024.

“When you see how tight the guys were on the scoreboard afterwards, it could have gone any way… so we’re super grateful that she brought it in,” McSharry’s mother, Viola, says outside the venue. 

When we looked up and seen that it was actually joint … it doesn’t come closer than that.

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“We’ve seen her come fourth and fifth in some very important races as well down through the years and in recent months,” her dad Aidan adds. “So we’re really, really delighted for her to get that medal. It’s a really special day.” 

Last night, McSharry smiled on the right side of the cruel/wondrous dichotomy of sport, Pilato looking over. With a slightly different type of tears, she told Italian journalists, “One hundredth of a second, it really sucks, sorry.”

The most important 0.01 seconds that Mona McSharry, the swimmer, has spent on this earth. 

Pilato, the Italian newspapers and her public will lament that one-hundredth; King and the Americans may well too, though she has already had so many special days. The Irish will savour it. 

McSharry cried happy, emotional tears all night. She will grace the front pages and adorn the back pages of the country’s newspapers. Editors will lose sleep over how many ways they can get away with using Mona (Lisa)’s smile. 

At 23, she is forever an Olympic medalist.

Nobody will question her decisions to train every day from an oddly young age; to enter Ireland’s Fittest Family; to move to America, away from her people; to stick it out when she lost the grá for it; to arrange a post-Olympics road trip around the USA; to embrace this week with a concoction of relaxation and excitement; or to dream of it ever being possible in the first place. 

They won’t ask (much) about the dive off the blocks or what the hell she did with her goggles. 

They will – we will – talk and write and remember fondly how Ireland – the tiny nation on the edge of Europe - won an Olympic medal in one of the most competitive sports that exist in the world. 

We will recall that one-hundredth of a second and say we knew. We knew she could do it. She had grown up in front of our eyes. Junior world champion in 2017, we had knowledge of the Ballyshannon Marlins girl.

When she touched the wall, 0.01 seconds away from absolute agony, we became part of her story. Ireland’s first swimming medal in 28 years and the first ever that will be celebrated fondly and forever. 

Phelps’ take on winning by such a small margin? “One-hundredth is the smallest margin of victory in our sport. I guess it’s pretty cool.”