Shortly after Daniel Wiffen returned home from the World Championships in Doha last February with two gold medals, the first won by any Irish swimmer at that level of competition, he attended a media event in Dublin.
For many of us it was the first time meeting Wiffen outside the pool, and the most striking impression from up close was his physique. Spidery, lean lower limbs, impossibly thin waist, then this terrific upper torso which seemed to sprout up in almost freakish proportion to the rest of his body.
Not quite Phelps-esque, but he’s getting there.
Whatever about his now unquestionable levels of confidence and self-belief, Wiffen may not have travelled so swiftly to the top of the Olympic medal podium without this sort of body of swimming armour.
Or as they put it in Chariots of Fire, David Puttnam’s classic based around the 1924 Olympics in Paris: “You can’t put in what God left out.”
On that day in February Wiffen was already telling us about his gold medal aspirations in Paris, seeing no reason whatsoever why he couldn’t win a double gold in the 800m and 1,500m, just like he’d done in Doha, where he was also named male swimmer of the meet.
“I feel like I can say every day that I want gold, it’s where you want to be,” Wiffen said. “But I think I’ve always had these really high goals of what I wanted to do.”
Such was his refreshingly open and bold attitude, something which clearly also drives him in the pool. But there was no mistaking his confidence for aloofness and whatever gently nerdy impression he also gave in no way concealed his burning ambition to stand atop the medal podium in Paris.
He’s never concealed anything about his background either. Although born to parents Rachel and Jonathan in Leeds on July 14th, 2001, three minutes before his twin Nathan, he’s always considered himself Irish, his family moving to the village of Magheralin on the Armagh side of the border with Down when the twins were aged 2½.
He’s spoken before too about first joining Lurgan Swimming Club, then moving to Lisburn City, and how his parents put the twins in different events, such was their inevitable sibling rivalry. Wiffen still refers to Nathan as one of his chief motivations, and in nothing but a good way.
His decision to join Nathan in Loughborough University, just after the Tokyo Olympics, was another turning point in his career. He had already laid down something of a marker in Tokyo – 14th overall in the 800m and 20th in the 1,500m, both in Irish records – but in truth, Loughborough marked the start of his transformation.
“I think it all kicked off and seems to be linked to when I started university in Loughborough,” he’s said of his time there.
“I got put straight in at the deep end. I was the worst swimmer there, thrown in and racing automatically in a squad with a world champion, an Olympic champion . . . and as soon as you get put into that environment you kind of have to embrace it, join in with it.”
Rewind to this time last year, in Fukuoka, and there’s another turning point. Wiffen finished fourth in both the 800m and 1,500m, after which he sat down with Andi Manley at Loughborough, and agreed something had to change.
“We got it all out on the table and as soon as we started back training for the season, it all clicked, and it all just started building from there.”
He showed his progress at the climax of last December’s European Short Course Championships on the outskirts of Bucharest, winning his third gold medal of the week, in the 800m freestyle, his time of 7:20.46 taking three seconds off the world record which had stood for 15 years to the Australian great Grant Hackett.
Hackett called him to offer his congratulations, as did Gregorio Paltrinieri from Italy after Wiffen broke his European 800m record in Fukuoka, where his 7:39.19 was only good enough for fourth. Both Hackett and Paltrinieri had little doubt about Wiffen’s potential either.
In winning the 800m gold medal on Tuesday night, Wiffen improved that European and also the Olympic record to 7:38.19, Paltrinieri winning bronze at age 29.
“I’m only 23, peak age for my event is 27,” Wiffen said afterwards. “Who knows what’s going to happen in the future, but I’m very happy to say that I’m Olympic champion.”
For the first time. Because it’s obvious now he won’t be resting on that.
