Gavin Cooney

DANIEL WIFFEN HAS generally made good on his promises to himself but now he’s pitching one to the Irish public.

Come to the Irish Open swimming championships at the National Aquatic Centre in Dublin later this month to see me break a world record. 

Wiffen will race every day from 12-16 April, as he competes in the heats and – let’s be honest – finals of the 400m, 800m and 1500m freestyle. 

The 400m is a new addition to his schedule, though Wiffen isn’t saying in which event he’s targeting the record. 

“I can’t tell you which event it is going to be in because I think it could be quite close in all three I’m doing, but we’ll see,” says Wiffen. 

Wiffen has one world record already to his name, in the 800m short-course. Any record at Abbotstown would be his first in a 50m pool.

It’s fair to say that Irish national events are rarely marketed as the chance to see world records tumble, but such is the unique compound of Wiffen’s talent and confidence. He isn’t saying he wants to break a world record in Ireland in some act of manifestation, but more so that people will turn up to support the event. There are still a few tickets available for the evening sessions. 

This is also not the financially canny way for Wiffen to play things: breaking a world record at the world championship in Singapore in July later this year would bring with it a $25,000 bonus. There’s no such financial benefits to doing it in Ireland but maybe Wiffen places a higher value on adulation. 

“I have not swam a fast time in Ireland or a tapered race in Ireland in a very long time,” says Wiffen, “and that’s why I want to try to break this record in front of a home crowd.” 

Wiffen is now back in the swing of training, hardly burdened by the weight of two Olympic medals. He went on holidays with his twin brother Nathan and some friends after Paris, though didn’t switch off fully, rising early to swim laps of hotel pools. 

He says there’s been one training blip post-Olympics. In his first week back at Loughborough University, he and his training partners were swimming a series of eight, 2000-metre straights. 

“We did one and I turned around to my coach and I said, ‘I just can’t do this today,’” says Wiffen. He says he wasn’t in the right head space, though he hints at his main issue with the session when he says “it’s quite a long time without talking to anybody.” Here lies one of Wiffen’s contradictions: he’s a highly social animal given his sport of choice involves keeping his head under water. 

That said, his single-mindedness provides plenty of propulsion. He has switched up his preparation this year, and is now exerting more control over his own training. 

“I’ve had a lot more input and I’m kind of swimming how I want to swim, and training how I want to train, in terms of what I want to do in the sessions,” he says. “I’ve kind of got the reins at the moment, and doing what I think is right. That’s why I’m probably going to be in one of the best shapes I’ve ever been this year.” 

He says he is learning the benefit of more rest, though dubiously defines rest as taking a Saturday off. His gym programme is different too, with the addition of the 400m freestyle meaning he is more focused on building speed, rather than strength. He is also experimenting with training at a heavier weight than that at which he races, equating it to a boxer cutting weight before a fight. 

“My theory is that if I train 10 kilos heavier than when I race then it is like having a parachute on when I’m training,” he says. “When I take all that weight off I might lose some strength but I am going to keep a lot of it and I will be faster with it.”

This is not to say he’s stopped listening to his coach Andi Manley altogether, who has finally got through to him of the need to rein in his competitive instincts. 

“In terms of how we train, we follow a model,” says Wiffen. “I didn’t really follow it, I just wanted to go fast as possible and go as hard as possible all the time. This year I notice I’m a lot physically fitter, tests are showing it as well, that I actually listen to what I’ve been told.” 

Wiffen will not need cheers in Dublin later this month to know of the impact made by his Olympic exploits, citing Swim Ireland’s increased State funding for 2025 to make his point. (Swim Ireland received an extra €40,000 this year, among the biggest bumps handed out to any governing body for 2025.) He also runs coaching clinics which are selling out fast, and his DMs are stuffed with messages from fans and potential future championship swimmers. He says he wants to provide an example to young swimmers that an unremarkable junior CV does not preclude a successful senior career. 

“There was a statistic came out, apparently if you don’t place top eight in junior swimming then you have near-zero percent chance of winning an Olympic medal,” says Wiffen. “I am the first person ever in swimming to win an Olympic medal who didn’t place in top eight in a junior competition in any country. A lot of people tell me they want to keep swimming for longer now, as they believe they can do it.” 

There have also been a couple of curious entanglements with recognition. Last November, Wiffen published a statement on social media clarifying that he hadn’t skipped out of a training week to appear on stage at a Kneecap gig while wearing a balaclava, his Olympic gold medal and a t-shirt bearing the Irish proclamation, as was claimed in a viral video shot among the crowd. 
https://www.tiktok.com/@captainchampignon/video/7439663973710023968?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7456762960083191318

“I don’t really understand why anyone would impersonate me anyway, to be honest,” says Wiffen. “I have a brother who does it all the time. I don’t understand it. It was quite funny to me, I just saw a lot of TikTok videos. I said it wasn’t me because it wasn’t, as I didn’t travel down to Bristol in the middle of a training week. I think my coach was more annoyed by that, as he saw it. It was quite impressive that he got a fake Olympic gold medal, I couldn’t even get a fake one, to use as a replica. Impressive.” 

Wiffen has been on the Late Late Show and was invited to Downing Street to celebrate St Patrick’s Day, but says he has rejected the vast majority of invites, given this is still the time to work. 

“I don’t want to say it’s fame because I don’t really feel famous, it’s more people being inspired, that’s what they keep saying to me,” says Wiffen. 

“That’s what inspires me, inspiring the country. That’s what I am living by at the moment. I don’t want to go to all these different things at the moment. I want to train and make myself better. It would be different if I was retiring this year but I’m not thinking of retiring until I am 31 years old so you are going to see a lot of my face over those years.”

He has meanwhile fixed his medal-winning time from Paris to his bedroom wall, so it’s the last thing he sees at night.  

“That’s what motivates me at the moment, trying to hit those times.”

Hit those times. . . and then replace them.