Another superb swim from Mona McSharry has qualified her for a third final on the penultimate day of the World Aquatics Championships in Doha, this time after the suitably tight margins of 50 metres breaststroke.
With two fifth place finishes already in the 100m and 200m breaststroke, the Sligo swimmer has given herself another fighting chance in Sunday’s final, finishing fourth in her semi-final won by Ruta Meilutyte from Lithuania, the world record holder and defending champion.
Starting the second of two semi-finals in lane six, McSharry didn’t get the best of starts and looked to be struggling halfway through the one-length sprint, but recovered her form over the closing 25m to touch home fourth in 30.57.
Meilutyte took the win in 29.42, and will start as clear favourite come the final, Tang Qianting from China winning the first semi-final in 29.80, the 19-year-old setting an Asian record in the process. In the end McSharry was ranked equal sixth with her 30.57, and so safely through.
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“It’s great,” McSharry said of her third final of the week. “Being able to go back to back racing, and in multiple events, and be able to make it back to finals, is really encouraging.”
Her effort comes just 24 hours after finishing fifth in the 200m breaststroke, the 23-year-old also back in the pool earlier on Saturday when coming through her heats, clocking 30.72.
“We get to go again tomorrow,” she said, “and the 50 really is just a splash and dash, so a nice one to end on. I think the most challenging has probably going from the 200m into the 50m, I think I am more of a distance-stroke swimmer, I like to glide, but we’ve been progressing well, and we’ll see what we can do on Sunday.”
Daniel Wiffen will be also back for his third freestyle final in Sunday’s closing session, qualifying for the 1500m showdown after winning the fourth of four heats earlier on Saturday morning, touching home in 14:54.29 and on course to add another medal after his victory in the 800m on Wednesday.
That 1500m freestyle final is Sunday at 4.16pm (Irish time),
As it turned out, the third heat was notably quicker, Germany’s distance specialist winning in Florian Wellbrock in 14:48.43, ahead of David Aubry from France. Fifth place there went to the other German Sven Schwarz, Fei Liwei from China also clocking 14:54.36, which means only two swimmers progressed from Wiffen’s heat.
Second behind Wiffen was the 16-year-old Kuzey Tuncelli from Turkey, in 14:54.98, who despite losing his swimming cap in the closing lengths, managed to get ahead of Gregorio Paltrinieri of Italy, 13 years his senior and the three-time previous champion, who thus missed out by one place.
“I tried to take it as easy as possible and just pace it to get back,” said Wiffen, who has a best time in the event of 14:34.91. “I could have missed it by .8 there, so I’m pretty happy with that, I did what I wanted to do, it was fun for me.
“I knew exactly my pace, I think I’m getting quite good at hitting a certain pace in training and in my warm up I knew what was going to make it back.
“I’m just going to try and go in with the same attitude, pace it how I want to pace it, post a good time and hopefully get on the podium.”
Wellbrock, the 26-year-old from Bremen, won this title in 2019, and also holds the short-course record to go with his Olympic 10km open water swim gold from Tokyo
Defending champion Ahmed Hafnaoui from Tunisia once again missed out, finishing back in 17th – the Olympic champion in the 400m missing out on all three finals in Doha, having also won the 800m in Fukuoka last year. Still only 21, he appears to have lost confidence in his swimming, just over five months out from Paris.
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