NCAA Preview: A Van, National Parks and a Deserved Break – How Mona McSharry Balanced Life After Paris
Regardless of what happened in Paris, Mona McSharry knew where she’d spend the fall of 2024.
The Irish international planned to take the semester off from the University of Tennessee. With her dog and a friend, McSharry had plans to rent a camper van and adventure through the western half of the United States, hitting national parks and new cities, doing anything but the daily regimen tethered to a pool that has directed her life since age 12.
If things went poorly in Paris, McSharry reasoned, she’d have a trip to look forward to. If they went well, she’d get space to savor the experience without returning straight to the grind.
With all that rest and recreation, McSharry also glimpsed a potential blueprint for the next four years. She’s back in Knoxville, readying for her final college postseason at age 24. And while she hasn’t made a concrete commitment for the 2028 Olympics, she at least has a fresh perspective on how different the next cycle could be.
“I think I’m in a place in the sport right now where I am not a ‘must swim all the time’ person, like you take a week off and then go, ‘Oh my god, I miss the water,’” McSharry said. “I’m not really there anymore. I love swimming and I love being an athlete, but I’m also OK accepting the break and enjoying that, too.”
The Paris ‘Fever Dream’
Mona McSharry of Ireland and Tatjana Smith of South Africa react after competing in the 100m Breaststroke Women Final during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at La Defense Arena in Paris (France), July 29, 2024. Tatjana Smith placed first winning the gold medal, Mona McSharry placed third winning the bronze medal.
McSharry’s second Olympics exceeded all expectations. She was part of an all-time final in the women’s 100 breaststroke, touching third in 1:05.59, .01 ahead of Lilly King and Benedetta Pilato in a field where six tenths blanketed the top six finishers. The bronze made Olympic history for Ireland, whose only other swimming medals had come in 1996, belonging to Michelle Smith, later banned for anti-doping violations.
The “fever dream,” as McSharry called it, only compounded as the week went on. Daniel Wiffen won gold in the men’s 800 freestyle, then added bronze in the 1500 free. McSharry and Wiffen served as Ireland’s flagbearers at the Closing Ceremonies at the Stade de France.
It added up to a storybook meet for the Sligo native, who’d been swimming since age 12, always looking toward this meet in the thick of her career. But even dreams can be exhausting, which is why McSharry planned for time away to process and decompress.
She and her friend rented a modified van with a loose plan to sojourn through the West. For a stretch of 66 days, they lived out of the van while adventuring to some of the country’s most iconic natural sites – Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon. McSharry fell in love with coastal Oregon, with its resemblance to Ireland. Only four times in that two-month span did McSharry spend a night anywhere other than the van, with a hotel night in San Francisco, one in Las Vegas, and a 48-hour trip back to Dublin for Team Ireland’s Centenary Ball in early November. It fed a run of about five months where McSharry didn’t do anything more in a pool than splash around.
The brief return to Ireland necessitated McSharry keeping among her limited van possessions her medal, which only supercharged the dichotomy she balanced. In a campsite near the Redwoods, she was just the 20-something girl with the little brown dog, not the national sporting icon. For someone who can see the end of her swimming career and is weighing the implications on her identity, it was a chance to explore other dimensions of who she wants to be. “I remember thinking back, or pulling out my medal, and honestly thinking, it was surreal,” she said. “Like, did this actually happen?”
Quiet by nature, McSharry appreciates what Olympic fame has brought while acknowledging its demands. The Irish swimming program has long advocated for itself in the country. Youth outreach from McSharry, Wiffen and others long predated international medals, and the responsibility of a public profile was nothing new. But going from the whirl of attention after Paris to the quiet of wide open spaces was the grounding McSharry needed, both for herself in the present and her career in the future.
“I think having those little moments where I look back and realize that I did that was really nice,” she said. “But then also being able to get away from it was nice too, because I don’t love the spotlight. I like it, and I appreciate it and I appreciate how excited the country gets, and I love to be able to show all the little kids that they can do it too. But then after a while, I’m like, Oh my gosh, I need to just be Mona. I can’t be the medalist for a second.”
Back to Real Life
McSharry’s return to Knoxville surprised her, too. She returned to training in January, with a little apprehension as to how a two-hour practice or a weight room session might feel. She hadn’t taken more than a month off in a decade, and she’d last left UT in the best shape of her life. Emotionally, she weathered bouts of FOMO in the fall – whether it was fellow Olympians ending their post-Paris breaks in September while she hiked the Columbia Gorge or fellow Lady Vols hitting best times at invitationals while she toured Zion National Park. She worried what the physical equivalent of that might be.
But the adjustment back into the swing of training wasn’t as mountainous as she feared.
Mona-McSharry. Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
“I threw myself back into it,” she said. “I was like, I don’t have time to ease myself into it. We’re just going to go, and the first week was tough, just because I’m obviously slower. … But then a full week or two of nine swim sessions, and I felt like I was back into it, obviously not going quite as fast as what I normally do or maybe not just quite as much endurance, but I was pleasantly surprised by how well I readjusted to it.”
Without McSharry, the Volunteers rose to fourth in the nation. They’re chasing hardware at NCAAs, where Tennessee was fourth last year.
At some point after that, McSharry will finalize her intentions for 2028, which may include the World Championships this year.
She purposefully resisted making any sweeping decisions on her trip, not wanting the halo of Paris or the euphoria of vacation to push toward an overly rosy conclusion. But how she’s navigated these months might prove to be illuminating.
Swimming doesn’t have to be everything, McSharry knows. That’s reinforced by how much she’s found away from the pool. Instead, it can be part of a larger whole.
“I think about life after swimming and kind of imagine what that’s going to look like,” she said. “And I think that’s hard to visualize when you’re 15, 16, 17, because you’re in the depth of it. At least I was, and swimming was everything for me. … But I do think, especially after taking five months off and being able to come back into it, I recognize that it’s OK to take a week or two here and there and still be OK, and maybe fill up my cup with travel or just being able to relax and not be an athlete for a week and then still be able to race fast.”