Daniel Wiffen continued his rise as
one of the worlds most promising swimmers as he claimed a second European
Title, in the third fastest time in history, in the Final of the 1500m
Freestyle, at the European Aquatics Short Course Championships in Otopeni,
Romania.
In a thrilling Final, where the
22-year-old spent the first 1,000 metres under World Record pace, he eventually
came home just outside it in 14:09.11, the third fastest time in history after
Germany’s Florian Wellbrock (14:06.88) and Italy’s Gregorio Paltrineiri
(14:08.16).
The Magheralin man finished the race
an incredible twelve seconds ahead of his closest competitors, David Aubry
(14:21.78) of France and Mykhailo Romanchuk (14:22.18) of Ukraine.
It was Wiffen’s second gold medal of
the competition, after he won 400m Freestyle gold on Tuesday, his time over
five seconds faster than his Irish record of 14:14.45.
A delighted Wiffen commented after
the race ‘It’s a great time, I knew I was going fast as I took it out fast, and
I just wanted to see how long I could hold on, I got to the 500m, and I was
really feeling it. It definitely hurt, but I expected to be that fast building
on from the 400m Title. I guess I’m just taking loads of confidence from this
and hopefully will bring it back and convert it into long course (50m).’
Adding to the history of the race,
Ireland were represented by twins for the first time in a European Final as
Daniel’s brother Nathan made his debut final. Nathan swam a personal best time
of 14:38.75 to finish eighth overall ‘I got to the first 1,000 and thought I’m
hurting a bit here, but I’d told my coach I wanted to go out with the pack,
because you’ve got to learn to stick with them in the 1500m, because that’s how
the race goes, so I’m pretty happy with that.’
Daniel and Nathan will be back in the
pool on Saturday in the heats of the 800m Freestyle, an event in which Daniel
is the European record holder.
Danielle Hill put in another
fantastic performance in the 50m Backstroke semi-final and was just on the
Irish Record of 26.59 that she had set in this morning’s heats, clocking 26.62,
to finish fourth in her heat and sixth overall to progress to tomorrow’s Final.
Speaking after the race Hill said,
‘It’s nice to be on the right side of it this time and I can now look forward
to the 100m (backstroke heats) tomorrow and carrying a little bit of that speed
into it, so yeah I’m excited and I just want to get going again to be honest.’
Hill will be back in action tomorrow
morning in the heats of the 100m Backstroke ahead of the 50m Backstroke Final
in the evening.
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