59TH ANNUAL MEL ZAJAC JR. INTERNATIONAL SWIM MEET
- June 21-23, 2024
- UBC Aquatic Centre
- Vancouver, Canada
- LCM (50 meters)
- Meet Central
- Preview
- Live Results
While much of the swimming world has their attention focused on Indianapolis for the US Swimming Trials or on Belgrade for the European Championships, or on Rome for Sette Colle, a few high-profile athletes that train in North America but are not American themselves have traveled to Vancouver for the 59th Annual Mel Zajac Jr. International Swim Meet. One such swimmer, Mona McSharry, capitalized on the opportunity and crushed a new Irish National record.
McSharry, who trains out of the University of Tennessee, swam 2:22.49 in the prelims of the 200 breaststroke this morning. McSharry entered the meet as the 2nd seed behind Alexanne Lepage but blew away the competition, setting a new personal best and National record. McSharry’s personal best and the former national record was 2:24.50, which she set back in May of 2023 at the Glasgow International Swim Meet. When we look at her split between the two swims, we can see that McSharry was more aggressive on the 2nd 50, taking it out nearly one and a half seconds faster and being a second faster on the 3rd 50. While the 4th 50 was a half a second slower, she chopped a full two seconds off her old Irish record.
| 50 | 100 | 150 | 200 | |
| New Irish Record | 32.70 | 1:08.77 (36.07) | 1:45.00 (36.23) | 2:22.49 (37.49) |
| Old Irish Record | 32.63 | 1:10.14 (37.51) | 1:47.50 (37.36) | 2:24.50 (37.00) |
The new record jumps McSharry way up the rankings, and she now sits 7th in the World, but with American Alex Walsh not being named to the Olympic team in this event and Russian Evgeniia Chikunova not competing, McSharry could find herself with a top-five seed at the Olympics. While the Irish Olympic Championships and Olympic Trials concluded at the end of May the official qualifying window closes tomorrow, June 23rd, so she still could add the event.
2023-2024 LCM Women 200 Breast
CHIKUNOVA
2:18.98
| 2 | Tatjana SMITH | RSA | 2:19.01 | 04/10 |
| 3 | Kate DOUGLASS | USA | 2:19.24 | 08/01 |
| 4 | Tes SCHOUTEN | NED | 2:19.81 | 02/16 |
| 5 | Lilly KING | USA | 2:21.93 | 06/20 |
| 6 | Alex WALSH | USA | 2:22.38 | 06/20 |
| 7 | SATOMI SUZUKI | JPN | 2:22.54 | 08/01 |
| 8 | Shiwen YE | CHN | 2:22.55 | 04/24 |
| 9 | Jenna STRAUCH | AUS | 2:22.83 | 10/20 |
| 10 | Ella Ramsay | AUS | 2:22.87 | 06/14 |
The Irishwoman has found success in short course, winning the bronze medal at the 2021 Worlds in the 100 breast, in addition to finishing runner-up at 2024 NCAAs in both the 100 and 200, but has yet to collect any hardware at major international competitions. At the most recent World Championship in Doha, she finished 5th in both the 100 and 200 breast.
In Paris, McSharry will tackle the 100 breast, where she is ranked 15th in the world. She will be joined by Danielle Hill and Ellen Walshe as well as Daniel Wiffen and Tom Fannon.
