Monday, April 3, 2023

LEN ratifies Irish swimmer Daniel Wiffen’s 800m European record


 

LEN is delighted to confirm that Irish swimmer Daniel Wiffen’s 800m freestyle gold medal-winning time of seven minutes and 25.96 seconds has been officially ratified as a new European short course record.

Wiffen achieved the landmark time at the Irish Winter Championships on 15th December 2022.

It was an achievement made all the more remarkable given it was quicker than the time achieved by gold medallist Gregorio Paltrinieri at the World Swimming (25m) Championships, which were taking place at the same time in Melbourne, Australia.

“I’m so happy and it’s class to have my name up there on the record sheets with all of the best swimmers in Europe,” Wiffen told Swim Ireland after the ratification.

Wiffen, who won Commonwealth silver for Northern Ireland at Birmingham 2022 last summer, won the 400m freestyle title at the Irish Open Swimming Championships in Dublin at the weekend.

The 21-year-old Loughborough-based swimmer was using the event as part of his continued build up to the 2023 World Aquatics Championships in July and inaugural LEN U23 European Championships in Dublin the following month.

“I’d like to say I’m more of a long course than short course swimmer, so I’d like to get some of those conversions underway and try for some British, European and maybe even world records, so to excite the swimming fans,” he said.

“The World Championships in Japan will be a bit one, where I’ll do my main events, but then I have a home championships here in Dublin with the European U23’s where I’ll be going for gold in front of home fans!

“So, European (long course) records and (being) on the podium at Worlds are definitely the aims for this season.”Wiffen received his European record certificate during a Swim Ireland ceremony in Dublin, which also included Para-swimmer Roisin Ni Riain, who acheived a new world short course record of 2:21.20 in the S13 200m backstroke event at the same event in December.

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