Daniel Wiffen claims second gold medal with victory in 1500m freestyle at European Short Course Championships in Romania

By Sports Desk
Published 7th Dec 2023, 20:54 BST
Updated 7th Dec 2023, 21:20 BST
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Northern Ireland’s Daniel Wiffen continued his rise as one of the world’s most promising swimmers as he claimed another European title, in the third fastest time in history, in the final of the 1500m freestyle at the European Short Course Championships in Romania.

It was a second gold medal for Wiffen, who came home home in 14:09.11 – the third fastest time ever behind Germany’s Florian Wellbrock (14:06.88) and Italy’s Gregorio Paltrineiri (14:08.16).

The Magheralin man finished the race 12 seconds ahead of his closest competitors, David Aubry (14:21.78) of France and Mykhailo Romanchuk (14:22.18) of Ukraine in

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The 22-year-old also won 400m freestyle gold on Tuesday, when his time was over five seconds faster than his Irish record of 14:14.45.

Daniel Wiffen claimed his second gold medal at the European Short Course Championships in Romania in the 1500m freestyleDaniel Wiffen claimed his second gold medal at the European Short Course Championships in Romania in the 1500m freestyle
Daniel Wiffen claimed his second gold medal at the European Short Course Championships in Romania in the 1500m freestyle

“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,” Whiffen said. “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).”

Ireland were represented by twins for the first time in a European final as Daniel’s brother Nathan made it through to his debut final.

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He 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,” he said.

The twins 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 as he targets a remarkable treble.

Meanwhile, Danielle Hill produced another fantastic performance in the 50m backstroke semi-final and set a new Irish record of 26.59 as she won her heat to progress to the semi-finals.

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The Larne swimmer then clocked 26.62 as she finished fourth in her semi to seal her place in Friday’s final.

"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,” she said.

Hill will contest the heats of the 100m backstroke on Friday morning ahead of the 50m backstroke final in the evening.