Gavin Cooney

IRELAND’S RECORD-BREAKER Daniel Wiffen believes his rate of improvement is frightening some of his opponents. 

Wiffen became the first male Irish swimmer to break a world record last year, smashing the 800m freestyle record by nearly three seconds. The record had stood for 15 years but was felled by the 22-year-old on his way to a trio of gold medals. 

The achievement catapulted Wiffen into headlines and to the forefront of Irish minds in an Olympic year. “Ever since I was younger, my aim has been to break a world record”, says Wiffen. 

It was a target but it is by no means an end goal. 

“It may sound a bit weird but I actually didn’t rest to break the world record”, says Wiffen. “I just turned up at the meet and swam fast. It’s kind of exciting to feel that way because I know I didn’t put the full preparation in and I ended up smashing a world record that’s never been touched in 10 years.” 

His rate of improvement is stunning, and Wiffen believes it’s something which should give his rivals pause for thought.

“When I moved to Loughborough [University] I started on a 15:39 in my 1500m, and just last year I brought it down to a 14:34 .so that’s over-a-minute drop there in three years. . They’re probably looking at me thinking ‘This guy drops time every time he swims’ which I find is quite an advantage because maybe it makes this fear factor of ‘What’s he going to do next?’

The world championships in Doha is the answer to what’s next, where he will once again race at 400m, 800m, and 1500m. He won gold medals in those disciplines across a six-day span at the Europeans in December, where his preparation was by no means finely tuned: he raced twice at 1500m two days before rocking up to the championships in Romania. 

“I like to think I’m a medal contender”, he says, “I wouldn’t do it just for fun.” 

The knock-on scheduling effects of Covid means the world championships are much closer to the Olympic games than usual, meaning Swim Ireland following many other federations in allowing their athletes to skip the competition if they prefer to focus on a training regime geared toward peaking at the Paris games in July. 

With Wiffen’s Olympic qualification guaranteed, he is travelling to Doha, and is treating them like a “test Olympics.” 

“Hopefully it goes perfectly but if something goes wrong I will have six months to fix it until the Olympics”, he says. 

His preparation is exhaustive and highly detailed. Based out of Loughborough University under coach Andi Manley, Wiffen swims around 80km a week and can draw on analysis and cutting-edge technology to eke the gains from perfect technique. He is able to use a £500,000 Kistler system along with underwater cameras to perfect his technique on turns, where every fractional gain is vital at the distances Wiffen races. 

“Every Tuesday night I’ll go in”, says Wiffen. “We’ll have this goal for the season of what we need to improve, for example my head position when I breathe. Sometimes I like to look a little bit back and every time we go on the cameras, we’ll be just checking in to make sure that we’re still on that improvement.” 

Wiffen ended up at Loughborough accidentally: he was initially bound for college in the United States, which his parents deemed too far from home. His twin brother Nathan was going to Loughborough, and so Daniel followed him. 

His training group is of an elite standard: Austrian world champion Felix Auboeck is among those working out of Loughborough, too. 

“I used Felix as my target, if I could beat him I’d be in the medals”, says Wiffen. ”
My first year I didn’t beat him at all in training; the first year he just wiped the floor with me. The next year I beat him once, just in one set. The third year I was beating him in nearly everything and that’s what I aim to do. I’m always trying to give Nathan that aim too. Now people are coming in and trying to do it to me so it’s nice to see that rubbing off on people.”

Wiffen soon expects to count his brother among his stiffest competition. 

“He’s got a better progression rate than me, I think he dropped a minute-and-a-half in six months, so I can’t wait to race him properly when he starts dropping his times towards mine and then we can be rivals, which will be even more fun”, says Daniel. 

“I’d say Nathan is quite quiet compared to me. Obviously he has the same drives and the same goals but he’s just a couple of years behind because he decided to switch his events but I’d like to say he’s quite confident now with the results he’s producing.

“We’ve done everything the same, we’re actually the exact same person apart from Nathan used to swim backstroke because his parents wouldn’t let him do freestyle because that was my event and they didn’t want us to fight.

“But then he decided to change because I think his coach said if you look at him, he’s got way better at distance freestyle than in backstroke. So he changed and he’s obviously making these finals, so it worked for him.” 

Wiffen’s dorm room at Loughborough is adorned with pictures from his appearance at the Tokyo Olympics, though they are soon ready to be exchanged for those from Paris, which perhaps will shimmer with more than just the pool.