'A young swimmer waking up in Northern Ireland this morning knows it's possible' - Olympic Games gold medal heroes Daniel Wiffen and Jack McMillan inspiring next generation
After Magheralin’s Daniel Wiffen became the first swimmer from Northern Ireland to win Olympic Games gold and Jack McMillan followed an hour later, Swim Ulster’s Chief Executive Stephen Cuddy believes the pair will have helped inspire the next generation of athletes on these shores to pursue their own dreams.
Wiffen paced his race perfectly to win the 800m freestyle in Paris on Tuesday evening, becoming just the fourth Northern Irish athlete – and first since 1988 – to stand atop the Olympic podium, and McMillan, who trained at Bangor Swimming Club before departing for Stirling University, repeated the feat soon after as part of Team GB’s successful 4x200m relay squad.
Having waited 36 years for glory, Northern Ireland have doubled their gold medal tally in the space of 16 hours with exploits in the La Defense Arena pool added to by Coleraine rower Hannah Scott, who helped Team GB fend off the Netherlands to win the quadruple sculls by 0.15 seconds.
Young athletes from Northern Ireland are now watching unprecedented success on one of sport’s grandest stages and Cuddy is confident that the trio – who could potentially be joined by the likes of Philip Doyle, Rhys McClenaghan and Rory McIlroy in the coming days – are instilling confidence within the next generation that they too can make it.
"It just inspires those kids in those areas and throughout Northern Ireland that ok, we're a small nation, but it's constant really that we punch above our weight in sport,” he said. “This Olympic Games I've no doubt will be the most successful ever for Northern Ireland, especially when you see what we have still to come.
"We've rowing hopes, a gymnastic hope, golfers, hockey with David Ames who is captain of Team GB, so there's lots to come. Hopefully the two boys winning golds will be a catalyst for further medals from this wee place.
"You need someone to breakthrough the ceiling and that's what the two boys have done last night. A young swimmer waking up in Northern Ireland this morning knows it's possible...they never had that before.
"Any young athlete seeing that will see those that went before them did it so why can't they? It's important that we keep pushing the pathway, keep improving the pathway, making things as best as we can to facilitate young people in Northern Ireland who want to have sport as their career to really go and achieve their dreams."
Cuddy also paid tribute to everyone that played a role in helping set swimming stars Wiffen and McMillan up for their piece of history, adding: "It's the pathway...it all starts with the boys being taught how to swim, so whoever taught them to swim when they were young children, that starts off the pathway.
"They then were part of two very good clubs in Lisburn and Bangor, two of our premier clubs, and I know Daniel is associated with Larne now, another of our very good clubs.
"Those guys went into the Commonwealth Games with Team NI and that's an important step prior to going to an Olympics because it gives you a feel for it. Both those guys were in Birmingham competing for Team NI so it's that pathway that helps them perform on the world stage.”