John Shortt Talks European Excellence, Pushing The Boundaries and Wiffen Momentum
John Shortt closed the curtain on 2025 with 28 Irish records, three world and European junior titles and a WJR en-route to gold at the European Short Course Championships.
His continuous ascent through the junior and senior ranks was recognised by Irish public service broadcaster RTE who named Shortt the Young Sportsperson of the Year.
On into 2026 and the Euro Meet Luxembourg at the end of January where he won the 100/200 backstroke double on top of 50m bronze. He followed that up three weeks later with the treble at the McCullagh International in Dublin.
John Shortt: Photo Courtesy: ©INPHO/Bryan Keane
The European Championships in Paris are this year’s focus for Shortt where he’ll find himself rubbing shoulders with Olympic and world champions, the continental waters awash with global medallists including Thomas Ceccon, Hubert Kós, Yohann Ndoye Brouard, Roman Mityukov and Apostolos Christou to name a few.
The likes of Kliment Kolesnikov, Pavel Samusenko and Miron Lifintsev may also be present at the Olympic Aquatic Centre in July and August although Swimming World spoke to Shortt just before European Aquatics confirmed that Russian and Belarusian athletes could apply for neutral individual athlete status.
Shortt, who turned 19 earlier in February, welcomes the strength of men’s backstroke in Europe and believes that as a collective they can push each other beyond existing boundaries.
They include Aaron Peirsol’s 200 back world record of 1:51.92 that has stood since the super-suited worlds of 2009 when Shortt was coming up two-and-a-half years old.
Shortt told Swimming World: “You have people like Hubi (Kós), Ndoye Brouard, Ceccon, Oli Morgan as well. There’s been some outrageous stuff been done.
“Now it’s up to the younger guys to keep following that trend and to keep pushing the limits of backstroke. I definitely think that most people want to see that 1:51 go at some point – whoever it is, I don’t care, I think it’s important for all of us to really push each other and not to remain stagnant.
“We want to see more people being 1:53s, 1;52s at major competitions. I think that’s the benchmark now, 1:54s aren’t going to cut it anymore. We need to continue to get better and that’s what those older guys are doing now, they’re really pushing the standards.”
From Corinthians & Bluefin to Limerick
Shortt was born in February 2007 in Galway, the first child of Kara and Frank followed by brother Christian (17) and 12-year-old sister Isabella, who is also a talented swimmer.
Rugby was his first love and he played from a young age for Corinthians RFC where the motto reads “So Run That You May Win.”
“I played anywhere in the scrum,” he said. “Generally, second row or in the back row. I was big enough and I had a bit of pace so I was like can I ever go in centre? And they laughed me out of the gaff there like ‘no you’re not, you’re too lanky to be in the centre.’
John Shortt: Photo Courtesy: ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan
“Me and my dad will always die on the hill that I could have been a decent centre. I suppose we’ll never really know. I was more of a forward than anything else but I loved it.”
Growing up, he admired Paul O’Connell , the eighth most-capped rugby player in Irish history who captained Munster, Ireland and the British & Irish Lions who’d excelled as a young swimmer.
When he was 10, one of his friends was having a try-out for Bluefin Swimming Club. Shortt accompanied him and ended up joining the club based at a 20m pool in Clarinbridge, Galway.
With his parents providing the support and car journeys morning and night, Shortt worked his way through the ranks, guided by coach Helen Gunning, now the regional pathway development coach with Connacht.
Shortt credits Gunning with teaching him how to master the mechanics of swimming.
“She was quite strict on the way we did things – the underwaters, the technique, she really drilled the technique into me very early on, the same with a lot of us. I think that played a big role because ultimately you can be the strongest person in the world but if you have poor technique in the water you’re not going to move very fast so I think that was definitely something that has helped me progress pretty quickly. I didn’t have to learn the technique at 17 or 18, I got to learn it properly at 11,12,13: that’s when we really started to home in on it.”
By the time he was 15 he was travelling to the National Centre Limerick a few times a week before moving full-time at 16 in 2024 to train under coach John Szaranek.
There were some tough times for Shortt and his parents. He missed his family and his mum’s home-cooked dinners and they had to watch from afar as he learned to do it all by himself.
While being “really challenging,” stepping away from Bluefin for Limerick was pivotal in his progress.
Painful Lessons of Olympic Year
After narrowly missing the podium at the 2023 European Junior Championships in Belgrade, Shortt approached Olympic year laser focused on making the Swim Ireland team for Paris.
He lowered his Irish 200 back record to 1:58.47 at the World Championships in Doha in the February with the trials looming in April.
John Shortt: Photo Courtesy: ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan
Shortt went through 1:58 for the first time in the 200 in 1:57.90 but despite it being a new national standard, it fell shy of the qualification time. Not did he qualify in the 100.
The 17-year-old had put far too much pressure on himself to qualify. “It was horrible,” he said. “I didn’t really enjoy that year of swimming. I don’t think a lot of people did. The pressure of the Olympic Games is just awful, of trying to get there.
“I was just being so hard on myself and putting so much pressure on myself really, it was horrible. I shouldn’t have been doing that, especially moving away from home and all that.”
Instead, he headed to the European juniors in Vilnius, where he lowered his 200 PB once more en-route to gold as well as taking silver in the 100.
He watched as Daniel Wiffen became Ireland’s second Olympic champion with 800 gold to which he added 1500 bronze with Mona McSharry also on the third step of the podium in the 100m breaststroke.
It was, says Shortt, painful yet brilliant to watch from afar as Swim Ireland enjoyed their best Olympic performance. “It definitely gave me a good fire in the belly I needed to step up my game. I think I’ve done that pretty well so far.”
Alchemy in Junior & Senior Waters
Missing the cut for Paris offered valuable lessons and he entered the following season intent on process rather than always focusing on outcome and the winning and losing.
He was happier in himself and started a whirlwind few weeks in mid-2025 at the European juniors in Samorin where he won 100 gold and 200 bronze.
From there he went to Singapore for the World Championships before heading back to Europe and the World Junior Championships in Otopeni, Romania.
John Shortt: Photo Courtesy: Swim Ireland
There he won the 100 and 200 backstroke double – the latter in an Irish record of 1:56.19 – as well as 50 bronze. With that he became only the second Irish swimmer to win a world junior title, eight years after McSharry’s 100m breaststroke success at Indianapolis 2017.
It had been an intense few weeks and Shortt took a couple of weeks away for the pool and enjoyed a low-key family holiday.
“I think it’s important to celebrate the wins but ultimately you need to get back on the horse pretty quickly,” said Shortt.
He turned his attention to the European Short Course Championships in Poland in early December where he shared the pool with the likes of Ceccon, Luke Greenbank, Oli Morgan, Ndoye Brouard and Mewen Tomac.
He booked lane four for the 200 back final where for the first time, he experienced the weight of expectation in senior international waters.
Come the final and he made his way steadily through the field before going ahead at the 150m mark. He came home in 1:47.89 – a world and European junior record, senior Irish standard and championship mark. Shortt followed that up with another national record of 50.10 as he came seventh in the 100 back.
“It’s important for me to move it on now from juniors because I’ve been extremely competitive at juniors,” he said. “I’ve been decent enough at senior competitions, been okay, been PBing and coming progressively up the ranks.
“But now that was kind of my first taste being in a big final with a few really good lads in there and I’ve been able to pull something out of the bag especially when there was a bit of pressure on me – I was lane four, so I definitely needed to prove myself there. I think I did quite a good job.”
The Wave Created By Daniel Wiffen
Away from the pool, Shortt studies Arts at the University of Limerick from where he’s due to graduate in 2029.
Sometimes he’ll be found watching and rewatching YouTube videos of Ryan Murphy, who won the backstroke double at Rio 2016 amid nine Olympic medals. At other times he’s engrossed in reading ‘Lord of the Rings’ and once that’s finished, ‘The Hobbit.’
Daniel Wiffen: Photo Courtesy: Deepbluemedia
Next up is the Giant Open in Paris before the Irish Championships and in July, the Europeans in the French capital.
By then it’ll only be two years until LA2028 and he credits Wiffen for demonstrating that the Olympic podium isn’t the preserve of a select few nations.
“I think Dan speaks for himself,” he said. “He’s shown us now that we can be up on a world stage, on an Olympic stage, it’s not just reserved for the Brits or for the US or China or any of them guys. We can be up there.
“I think the momentum he has given us now has been insane: we’ve got a lot of younger guys here who are trying to come up through the ranks so to see him do so well on the world stage has given us a really good boost and a confidence boost as well which is really important in a sport like swimming.
“I think Dan has done and probably will continue to do stuff that will keep us shaking our heads but ultimately he has done an amazing job for Swim Ireland.”