“It was fairly nerve-wracking, if I'm being honest, because I had added pressure of also being at a big competition,” Shortt says about his Leaving Cert results. Two years ago, the 18-year-old made the decision to move south from Roscam in Galway to Limerick where he would train under John Szaranek at the National Centre. That combination has turned Shortt into Irish swimming’s next bright thing. Staying in Limerick and studying at UL is the plan. He’s turned down scholarship offers from the University of Tennessee and the University of Florida. “Just trying to stop myself from spiralling, that was the main thing,” Shortt continues. “I didn't actually see my actual points score until (Monday). My mam just texted me because I was kind of, not freaking out, but just kind of a little bit panicked. My mam just texted me, just said, 'UL is secured. Go out and race hard tonight'. “I was like, 'OK, that's perfect'. I can kind of relax now and focus on the swim a bit. It was a bit of an emotionally wrecking few days.” Shortt started to take swimming seriously when he was around eight or nine. The mother of one of his friends suggested he try out for the local swimming club. He played rugby with Galway Corinthians – the club hosted a homecoming for him on Monday night with half the town turning out to celebrate – and also hurling but his swimming stroke just kept getting stronger. By 16, he had decided to join the senior cycle at Castletroy College and move to Limerick. Last year, he won 200m backstroke gold and 100m backstroke silver at the European juniors. This summer, it was 100m gold and 200m bronze at the Europeans in Slovakia, followed by experience-building races at the world seniors in Singapore and then the world juniors in Romania. “Every time I got in the water, I got better,” says Shortt. “This was just the culmination of those three meets back to back. My coach has expectations for me all the time. I think I have actually finally met his expectations. “I've learned a lot about myself this summer. And I think I'm a very different swimmer than I was when I had my first international experiences two summers ago. “I was able to pick myself back up after not winning that 200 back at (European) juniors and to win the 100. I think that was probably my highlight of the summer. I got some really big respect from different coaches from other nations. That was a massive thing when my coach told me that.” Shortt is only the second Irish swimmer to win gold at the world juniors, following Mona McSharry’s in 2017. The importance of mentality in sport, the need to get back in the water after a setback, is something he’s learned from McSharry. “You’ll always be tested physically, but the mental side is where the real winning of it is done and she's proved that,” says Shortt. “She's managed to get up every single time she was knocked down and nothing but massive respect for her.” Last year, McSharry contacted Shortt about the possibility of going to the University of Tennessee, where she moved in 2020. “I was very tempted for a while,” says Shortt, “especially when I went out there for a visit and met Matt [Kredich], her coach, and Caleb [Lawrence] and Sarah [Collins] and a lot of their coaches, the amazing team they have out there. “I can see why she is there and she was giving me very, very good advice. It is very hard to go out there. You're very far away from home and that so it's a completely different culture and environment out there. “The team in Tennessee is fantastic but I just love it so much in Limerick. It's definitely something that I would like to do in a few years’ time, maybe, but right now Limerick is the place where I want to be.” The next events circled in the calendar are the European Short Course Championships in December and next summer’s European seniors but at the back of his mind will always be the Olympics in LA. Shortt just narrowly missed out on qualification for last summer in Paris. “It’s all these competitions in between that matter the most because they're momentum building, they're confidence boosting,” he says. "They will all benefit me coming in towards LA and hopefully then we can produce the best performance we can.” Last year, it was Daniel Wiffen who leapt from the starting blocks into the Irish consciousness. In 2028, it could be Shortt. “He was texting me,” Shortt says about Wiffen. “It's always nice to have an Olympic champion call you a beast.”