Daniel Wiffen continued his rise as one of the worlds most promising swimmers as he claimed a second European Title, in the third fastest time in history, in the Final of the 1500m Freestyle, at the European Aquatics Short Course Championships in Otopeni, Romania yesterday evening.
These are great days for Irish swimming and perfectly timed with Wiffen now a genuine contender for Olympic medal performance.
The 22-year-old spent the first 1,000 metres under World Record pace, eventually coming home just outside it in 14:09.11, the third fastest time in history.
The Magheralin man finished the race an incredible twelve seconds ahead of his closest competitors, David Aubry (14:21.78) of France and Mykhailo Romanchuk (14:22.18) of Ukraine.
It was Wiffen’s second gold medal of the competition, after he won 400m Freestyle gold on Tuesday, his time over five seconds faster than his Irish record of 14:14.45.
“It’s a great time, I knew I was going fast as I took it out fast, and I just wanted to see how long I could hold on, I got to the 500m, and I was really feeling it,” he said after the race.
“It definitely hurt, but I expected to be that fast building on from the 400m Title. I guess I’m just taking loads of confidence from this and hopefully will bring it back and convert it into long course (50m).”
Daniel’s brother Nathan made his debut final in the same race, the first time twins have done so. He swam a personal best time of 14:38.75 to finish eighth overall.
Daniel and Nathan will be back in the pool on Saturday in the heats of the 800m Freestyle, an event in which Daniel is the European record holder.
Danielle Hill put in another fantastic performance in the 50m Backstroke semi-final and was just on the Irish Record of 26.59 that she had set in the morning’s heats, clocking 26.62, to finish fourth in her heat and sixth overall to progress to today’s Final.
“It’s nice to be on the right side of it this time and I can now look forward to the 100m (backstroke heats) tomorrow and carrying a little bit of that speed into it, so yeah I’m excited and I just want to get going again to be honest.’
Hill will be back in action this morning in the heats of the 100m Backstroke ahead of the 50m Backstroke Final in the evening.
At time of writing Swim Ireland has seven swimmers through to Semi Finals at least this evening.
