History-making world champion Daniel Wiffen seals final spot for shot at second gold by Magheralin swimmer

Having topped the podium to make history midweek at the Doha event by lifting a first gold in Team Ireland history, Wiffen has the chance to double up on his men’s 800m freestyle title with success in the 1500m showdown.

Saturday’s heat time of 14:54.29 proved a winning outcome to place Wiffen as sixth seed for the Sunday finale.

Following the heat, Wiffen told Swim Ireland: “I’m good, I tried to take it as easy as possible and just pace it to get back, I’m in sixth position going in, I could have missed it by .8 there, so I’m pretty happy with that, I did what I wanted to do, it was fun for me.”

The 22-year-old, who was seventh in his first final of the championships across the men’s 400m freestyle discipline, added: “I knew exactly my pace, I think I’m getting quite good at hitting a certain pace in training and in my warm-up I knew what was going to make it back.

"To be honest, it’s faster than what I thought was going to make it back, but I’m just happy to be on the right side of it.”

Wiffen also discussed his final prospects: “I’m just going to try and go in with the same attitude, pace it how I want to pace it, post a good time and hopefully get on the podium.”

The men’s 1500m freestyle final is scheduled to start on Sunday at 4.16PM (UK time).