Ireland swim sensation Daniel Wiffen claims that he is ‘scaring’ his medal rivals ahead of the Olympics.
Wiffen, 22, became the first Irishman to break a world record in the pool when he smashed a 15 year old record in the European Short Course Championships in Romania last month.
He claimed three gold medals in those finals – in the 400m, 800m and 1500m freestyle – and aims to make it onto the podium at Paris 2024.
READ MORE:Sickness kept Daniel Wiffen up all night before world record breaking swim
Wiffen’s rate of progression has stunned observers and he recalled how his move to Loughborough University four years ago lit the fuse.
He had wanted to go to the United States on a swim scholarship but his parents didn’t want him moving too far afield and so he followed Nathan, his twin brother, to study in Leicester.
“When I moved to Loughborough I think I started on a 15:39 in my 1500m and just last year I brought it down to a 14:34,” he said. “So that’s over-a-minute drop there in three years.
“And then short-course, in 800m, I think I’ve dropped over 45 seconds. I’d say my rate of improvement is pretty scary for my opposition.
“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?’.
“It’s pretty cool. There are still people who I need to beat around the world, so that’s just the next box to tick, to go race world champs and try to beat them.
“I am pretty confident. I’ve got quite a bit of experience now, I think that’s what was lacking before, I hardly had the experience of every other athlete.
“It’s just because of the amount of work I put in – I know what other people do in sessions in the world and I know what I can do. I can compare it and just off training I know that I can beat them. That’s where the confidence comes from.
“You do need to keep a level head. Over the years when I was younger, I was probably a bit cocky towards it but it is really about trying to stay grounded yourself and really produce confidence inside yourself.”
Wiffen admits smashing Grant Hackett’s 15-year-old world record was not exactly part of the plan as he went flat out rather than scheduling his usual recovery periods.
“It may sound a bit weird but I actually didn’t rest to break the world record,” he explained. “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 and I’m just looking to build on that in the next couple of months.
“I’m really looking forward to what’s going to happen.”
Wiffen is part of a 12-strong team that will compete in next month’s World Aquatics Championships.
He is using the Doha event as his mid-season benchmark but also as a “test Olympics” – he is competing in those same three freestyle events over nine days, just as in Paris 2024.
Last year, the Down athlete finished in fourth place in the final of the 800m and 1500m at the finals.
“That changed something in me that it really made me more determined this season than before that I need to keep to myself, keep my head down and really go for it,” he said. “Just stay quietly confident.”
Yet Swim Ireland’s national performance coach John Rudd does partly attribute Wiffen’s massive improvements down to a rare self-confidence.
“It would be a cocktail of different qualities within Daniel,” said Rudd. “First of all, physiologically, he’s exceptional and able to maintain a high pace over a long distance that very few athletes can achieve.
“Outside of that, he has exceptional self-belief and confidence, one of the highest levels of self-confidence that I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t cross over into arrogance or conceit, it’s just self-belief and applies that on a day-to-day basis.
“It’s rare that he has a bad day at work, he’s well organised, he believes in his coaching system and I would say it’s a blend of cerebral and emotional qualities as well as having a terrific physiology that allows him to deliver in the events that he does.
“And also a perseverance because he wasn’t a particularly high profile junior athlete, as we know, he only swam very late into his junior years at international level – and he’s now having a real purple patch based on all of those factors.”
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