Ellen Walshe and Mona McSharry close World Cup with silver medals and Irish records

SILVER LINING: Ellen Walshe competes in the final of the Women’s 200m individual medley heat during the World Aquatics Championships 2025 in Singapore. Pic: Ian MacNicol/Sportsfile

Ellen Walshe and Mona McSharry have concluded their World Aquatics World Cup Tour adventures by winning a pair of silver medals and setting new Irish Records in the 200m Individual Medley and 50m Breaststroke, respectively.

For Walshe it was her sixth Irish Record and her seventh medal while McSharry broke her fifth Irish Record and won her fifth medal.

The duo have rewritten the Irish Record books on eleven occasions on the tour and won twelve medals between them. Prior to 2025 only four medals had been won by Ireland on the World Cup circuit, including a silver and bronze by McSharry in Budapest in 2023.

Walshe, who has won medals and set records across the 200m Butterfly and 400m Individual Medley over the past two weeks, swam to her first podium finish of the series in the 200m Individual Medley on Saturday night, breaking her own 2024 Irish Record of 2:05.52 in 2:04.75.

The USA’s Alex Walshe won the event for the third week and claimed the ‘triple crown’ in 2:04.01, while Great Britain’s Abbie Wood was third in 2:05.33.

Walshe, who was named in Ireland’s European Championships (25m) team earlier this week, will head to Poland full of confidence having won two gold (400m IM), four silver (200m IM, 400m IM, 200m Butterfly x 2) and one bronze (200m Butterfly) over the past three weekends and, having set fifteen Irish Records during the 2024 short course (25m) season, is well on track to repeat that feat having already demolished records in the 200m Butterfly (x3), 400m IM (x2) and 200m IM (x1) so far this season.

McSharry picked up her third silver medal of the series in a new Irish Record of 29.58 in the 50m Breaststroke, knocking one hundredth of a second off her own 2021 standard of 29.59. In Westmont last week McSharry had won gold and equalled that record.

Belgium’s Florine Gaspard won gold in last nights’ final in 29.48, with Japan’s Satomi Suzuki third in 29.90. The three were the only swimmers under the 30 second mark.

The Olympic bronze medallist (100m Breaststroke) leaves the World Cups with gold in the 50m Breaststroke, silvers in the 50m Breaststroke and twice in the 100m Breaststroke and bronze in the 200m Breaststroke, while she broke the 50m Breaststroke Irish Record, the 100m Breaststroke Irish Record and the 200m Breaststroke Irish Record three times.

With the three World Cups now complete Ireland have two athletes ranked in the top ten overall with Walshe in ninth and McSharry tenth.

Irish swimmers will now look ahead to the European Championships (25m) in Lublin, Poland from 2nd to 7th December and the Irish Winter Championships in Dublin from 12th – 14th December.