World Championships: Daniel Wiffen Makes History for Ireland with 800 Free Gold

Photo courtesy: G.Perottino/Deepbluemedia/Insidefoto

World Championships: Daniel Wiffen Makes History for Ireland with 800 Free Gold

Ireland had never before won a medal at the World Aquatics Championships in the long-course pool. There will be no wait for the first gold medal.

Daniel Wiffen secured both accolades Wednesday by rallying to win the 800 freestyle with a time of 7:40.94.

He charged late to seize control of a race dominated early by the outside lanes. In Lane 8, Elijah Winnington grabbed silver in 7:42.95. Third was Italy’s Gregorio Paltrinieri in 7:42.98.

Wiffen has had his misses on this stage before. Wiffen was seventh in the 400 earlier in the meet. He was fourth at the 2023 World Championships in both the 1,500 free and the 800 free. The latter was the most acute disappointment, Wiffen setting a European record that still wasn’t quite enough to get past Ahmed Hafnaoui, Samuel Short’s Oceania record and Bobby Finke’s American record.

Two of those three were out of the picture this week. Hafnaoui is in a protracted slump apparently, after missing the 400 free final and finishing a disappointing 18th in the 800 free prelims, joining mainstay Florian Wellbrock on the outside of the final.

So the door was wide open for Wiffen, and he did what was needed to crash through it.

“It’s amazing,” Wiffen said. “We’ve never had a World Championships medal, two fourths was actually the highest places that we’ve had. Coming here and winning that medal makes it so nice, and so sweet, and makes all the training worth it. But now we’ve got another event so we need to put our head down after this.”

For a moment, it looked like two old hands might steal it away from him. Winnington, the silver medalist in the 400 free, took the early initiative. He was ahead for the first 400 meters until Paltrinieri took the lead at 450. The wily Italian has a penchant for troubling for medals from the outside lanes – he won silver form Lane 8 in the Tokyo Olympics.

Wiffen jumped from second to third at 550 meters and set his sights on Paltrinieri. The Italian faltered some on the 14th 50, going 29.65 to Wiffen’s 29.04. A 28.55 from Wiffen on the penultimate 50 put him to the front, and he brought it home in 27.42, second-fastest in the field.

Winnington rallied with a 27.36 closing 50 to nip in front of Paltrinieri, who split 29.27 off the end.

“The 400m I maybe went out too timidly but I didn’t want to leave any stone unturned today,” Winnington said. “I thought I’d just go for it and see where I get. I’m not in Olympic shape yet but I am stoked to win this medal. Compared to the other guys, I’m a bit of a sprinter, and that was going to be my strength. I just thought I’ll give it everything and they’d have to chase me down.”

“I wanted to go out fast and try to break the race,” Paltrinieri said. “That was my strategy. Then I saw Daniel coming from behind, so it was really hard for me. I tried to resist until the end but Daniel did a great race.”

Fourth place went to German Sven Schwarz in 7:44.29, .13 seconds ahead of Hungary’s Kristof Rasovzsky. The top seed from prelims, Italy’s Luca De Tullio, was more than three seconds slower in finishing seventh.

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