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Watson takes seventh place on senior international debut as McSharry misses out on European final

Tanya Watson improved on her score from earlier on Wednesday while Mona McSharry was unable to progress to the final.

TANYA WATSON FINISHED in seventh place in the platform final at the European Championships in Edinburgh while Mona McSharry failed to progress to the final of the 50m breaststroke in Glasgow.

In what was Watson’s senior international debut for Ireland, she improved on this morning’s score of 233.15 by over 40 points to finish with 276.85 and was in fifth place at one point in the final.

She previously finished in 11th place in the women’s 10-metre diving platform preliminaries en route to the final.

Speaking to RTÉ Sport after the final, the 16-year-old Watson said:

“I’m really really happy with that performance, there’s a lot I can take from that, a lot of stuff I can improve, but I haven’t done a senior list for about a year now, so to be able to perform like that on the day I’m really chuffed.”

Meanwhile, Mona McSharry had to settle for 12th overall after coming home in a time of 31.45 to finish sixth in the first heat of the semi-finals of the women’s 50m breaststroke in Glasgow.

“It was a bit out of reach,” she told RTÉ Sport after the race.

“It’s a pity obviously and I was hoping I could go faster tonight but with the 50′s [races] it’s just splash and dash and either you get it or you don’t.”

“Honestly, I think I’ve done quite well. I have to look back at the season as a whole and I did quite well at the European short course in December. I’ve branched out to freestyle and I’ve been working on other strokes as well.

Despite coming to the end of her season, McSharry added that she’s already looking forward to getting back in the pool and resume her training.

“Obviously this isn’t exactly as far as I wanted to come here at the end of the year but all you can do is hope for more next year.

“It’s great that if I had swam my PB I would have been in the top 5. It’s a pity it didn’t happen on the day but I guess you do have bad swims at times, you can’t always be on top. It’s been a tough year but I’m happy with the experiences that I’ve gotten from this meet.

“I just need to concentrate on myself next year and maybe not concentrate on the 100m breastroke as much as I did this year because I think I’ve been overthinking it too much.

“I’m actually so excited to get back into training even though this is the end of the season, I just want to jump back into it for next year.”

There’s more swimming and diving action coming up on Thursday, with Oliver Dingley competing in the 3M Springboard while in Glasgow, Conor Ferguson, Darragh Greene, Brendan Hyland and Shane Ryan will be battling for a place in the 4 x 100m medley relay final.

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Author
Sinead Farrell
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