DANIEL WIFFEN HAS never participated in marathon swimming at any level but is going to dive into the Seine on 9 August for the Olympic 10k open water race.
The audaciousness of that statement is overtaken in his followup – that he’d like to medal in it too.
“Yeah, I’ve still got my sights on the marathon swimming,” Wiffen, 23, tells reporters after winning bronze in tonight’s 1,500m freestyle.
“I’m still going in with high expectations, don’t get me wrong. I want to be on the podium – still – for my first time. That would be pretty unbelievable.”
He tempers the message, however, making clear he knows that open water swimming is more about tactics than it is about speed or endurance, or even, training.
“It’s really just about the racing. It’s all very tactical. So it’s a different type of racing and so we’ll have to see.”
He wants to take a full 24 hours off from swimming before thinking about how to plot out the 10k.
“To be honest, I’ve got to go see my family tomorrow, hopefully meet a lot of people who I haven’t got to meet yet who want to see the gold medal and then probably get some photos going,” he says of his plans.
“The highs of winning a gold medal are great but then you have to put it behind you. After the 800m, all I was thinking about was when do you get ready for this 1,500m. And I didn’t get any chance to celebrate really at all.”
With a knowing nod, Wiffen tells a journalist to subscribe to his YouTube channel when she asks how he is training for the event.
However, he is not exposing himself to any possible e.Coli infections this week.
“If you watch my latest YouTube video, I posted me trying to practice going around buoys, but in terms of actually swimming in a river, I’ve not practiced it. I’ve decided that I’m not going to swim in the Seine until race day, I don’t want to have to deal with any illness before the race.
“It’s going to be a very new thing because I’m going in blind, it’s going to be a fun one. It’s probably better to do it blind.”
