Mona McSharry and Ellie McCartney progress at European Championships

The Sligo woman easily secured her semi-final spot.

Swim, Athletics & Gymnastics Ireland Media Day Ahead of European Championships, Olympic Federation of Ireland Offices, Dublin 5/8/2026

Mona McSharry comfortably secured a spot in the semi-finals of the Women's 100m Breaststroke Heats at the European Aquatics Championships on Tuesday morning.

The Irish swimmer came home in second spot behind Britain's Angharad Evans, who won the final heat in a championship record time of 1:05.45.

McSharry was upbeat after clocking her time of 1:05.97.

"I'm happy," she said afterwards, "I think it's funny. Having gone to 1:05, I'm like, okay, yeah, that's fine. Good morning swim. But I'm happy. Going to build on it tonight and hopefully be able to go faster."

The Sligo woman continued: "I thought I didn't have another four years in me and I really thought after 2024 I'd be done because there was a bit of a push to kind of get to that point. But I took a break and came back and I'm really enjoying it, so we're just kind of flowing with that."

Meanwhile, Ellie McCartney also progressed in a time of 1:07.96, after finishing eighth in the same heat.

"I'm super happy," she said. "I've struggled with the 100 breaststroke a bit throughout the later season. It wasn't great in Glasgow, so to come here and prove it by almost a second and make it back tonight, I'm really happy."

Later, John Shortt advanced in the Men's 200m Backstroke, coming home in fourth place in a time of 1:56.50.

"Yeah, that was good," he reflected. "There's always kind of little worries, you know, when you're going into your main event, especially so early into the competition, you kind of don't really know how you're going to be or, you know, how is anybody else going to be? So I just made sure I stuck to my routine this morning, and just kind of went through the motions, I suppose."