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BBC News
14-04-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
McSharry secures her place at the World Championships
Olympic bronze medallist Mona McSharry secured her place at the World Championships in Singapore in July by winning the 100m breaststroke final at the Irish Championships in her return to competitive racing for the first time since the Paris Games last summer, the Sligo swimmer was pushed all the way to the wall by Enniskillen's Ellie time of 1:06.87 was well outside of her best, while McCartney was just one-tenth of a second behind and the same length of time outside of qualifying for the worlds. 'That might have been what I needed' "It's exciting. It wouldn't be as fun if I was just out there by myself, so I definitely love a little bit of a push," McSharry said after her victory."Honestly, that might have been what I needed, was a little bit of a race just to kind of get me over the line."McSharry has just recently returned to training after fulfilling her dream of winning an Olympic medal."I was honestly a little bit worried coming into it," she added."I'm just back and it's not an easy time to do, to qualify for Worlds."I never try and take that for granted and I knew I was going to be kind of restarting in a sense and trying to build my way back up."It's definitely a good starting point, my first couple of races since the Olympics, so we're just kind of getting a feel for it again." McCartney 'honoured' to race McSharry McCartney is one of the up and coming hopes for Ulster and Irish swimming. She chalked up two golds and a bronze at the 2023 Youth Commonwealth Games and the 20-year-old has qualifying times for both the European under-23s and World University Games this race her favourite event, the 200m breaststroke, later in the championships."It's my first time under that 1:07 mark. I only went under 1:09 this year so it's a big drop for me," she said."Going that fast and having such a tight race against Mona, it's always an honour to race her so it gives me good confidence for the 200m hopefully."She also has one eye on the Commonwealth Games next year."Glasgow would be great. I didn't get to go to Birmingham so it's always an honour to represent Northern Ireland."You don't get many opportunities, and I have such a fond memory of going to the Commonwealth Youth Games, so if I were to be able to go to Glasgow it would be an honour to represent Northern Ireland again." Wiffen and Shortt continue to impress Olympic champion Daniel Wiffen continued his good form taking the 400m freestyle title to add to the 800m he won on swam a Championship record and World Championships qualification time of 3:46.87 and now looks forward to the 1500m freestyle on Wednesday."It was tough, coming into this I thought I was going to be quite fast in the 400m," admitted Wiffen."I'm disappointed, to be honest. I've got to drop seven seconds to be within the top of the world for the LA Olympics."I think it's pretty doable. I'm just going to get back training, I think that's what it's showing me, in this racing I'm not as fit as I thought."Eighteen-year-old John Shortt from Galway continued his incredible week with an outstanding swim in the 200m backstroke semi-final. The National Centre Limerick swimmer smashed his Irish Senior and Junior record, the Championship record and was under the qualification time for the World Championships. His time of 1:56.61 ranks him sixth in the world this year.
BBC News
05-03-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Weston has 'eye on top step' at World Championships
Great Britain's Matt Weston has his "eye on the top step" of the podium only at the skeleton World Championships, which begin on Thursday in Lake Placid, month Weston secured the skeleton World Cup overall title for the second successive year. The 28-year-old won world gold in St Moritz in 2023 and came within 0.23 seconds of doing so again last year, but had to settle for silver."Training's going pretty well so far and that's all I've got my eye on, the top step of the podium," Weston told BBC Radio Somerset."I set myself two goals this year - win the [World Cup] overall again, which I have managed to do, and win the World Championships, so that's the main goal." Weston will complete four runs of the Lake Placid track over two days of heats at the Worlds."This track is really tough, really technical and [you need] consistency - not only over four runs but over two days where you could be in a good position after day one and then for some people the pressure might get to you to go and perform the next day," he said."That's part of a toughness of the World Championships but it means a lot to me." While Weston said his focus is very much on competing at his best this week, part of Team GB's efforts will also be looking towards the Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina next finished 15th at his first Winter Olympics in Beijing in 2022."We are practising things in preparation for Milan - how we work with coaches, equipment, personal things for me like how to get my headspace in the right place for racing, how do I overcome this problem, that problem," Weston said."Most of the things we do are with Milan in mind as well, so it's definitely there and the fact that it's less than a year to go kind of makes you a bit nervous as well but very excited." Weston is the first British male to win back-to-back World Cup titles and the third overall to do so, following Alex Coomber (2000, 2001 and 2002) and Kristan Bromley (2004 and 2008).He has trained with the Great Britain team in Bath for the past eight years, where the UK's only skeleton and bobsleigh track is the eight-race World Cup series from November to February, Weston only missed out on a place on the podium once."For me personally, it's pretty crazy to think I'm writing history. It doesn't really sink in at the moment because the sport is so compact over six months, you're very much almost week-in, week-out, day-to-day, I've got this new goal to hit, I've got this new target to try and achieve," he said."I think it'll probably only be when I retire that I'll think 'OK I didn't do a bad job when I was in the sport'."
