Swimming
Who is Daniel Wiffen?
Who Is Daniel Wiffen? Learn About the Irish Olympic Swimmer.
Did you know?
- Daniel has an identical twin, Nathan, who is also a world-class swimmer. Daniel is older - he was born three minutes earlier - and, at 6’ 4”, is slightly taller.
- As a teenager he used to get up at 4am daily in order to fit in two hours of training in the pool before school even started.
- Daniel played other sports before concentrating solely on swimming from age 14. He and Nathan played gaelic football together, in midfield, for their local GAA club, which surely confused the opposition!
- During Covid, with pools closed down, he trained in the family back garden, using a paddling pool and a tether.
- The Covid lockdown meant Daniel never sat his final school exams (A-Levels) either. His grades from the previous year in Maths, Applied Maths and software systems development (coding), plus some mock exams, were good enough to graduate.
- When Daniel got an Olympic ‘legacy’ prize of £25,000 for winning gold in Paris 2024 he donated the entire sum to his old school, St Patrick’s Grammar School in Armagh, saying: “Legacy isn’t just about medals, it’s about giving back.”
- Daniel credits his move to Loughborough University in England, where he moved up in distance and trained with Olympic and world champions like Adam Peaty and Felix Auböck, with making him world class.
- Daniel has an unusual physiology that he thinks contributes to his success. At the ‘catch and pull’ point of his stroke, his elbows face down whereas most people’s face up. This makes it easier to lock into position quickly.
Daniel Wiffen
© Inpho Sports Photography / Red Bull Content Pool
- Profiling at Red Bull’s Performance Centres in Europe and LA, has also revealed that his body clears lactate from muscles extremely quickly, something Daniel has maximised further through training.
- Daniel’s weekly training mileage in the pool can reach 85-90km but it varies, depending on the time of year, and can be half that when he is ‘tapering’ for a competition.
- He usually goes to bed at 9pm because sleep and recovery is so vital when your daily training load is as high as 20km in the pool plus a gym session.
- Daniel’s favourite racing goggles are mirrored Arena Airspeeds. “Since I began thinking about winning I started wearing the gold ones.” He always uses a brand new pair at major championships.
- At the Paris Olympics, between the 800m heats and final, Daniel managed to tot up 15 hours of sleep in 24 hours, including two three-hour naps.
- He not only won 800m gold and 1500m bronze in Paris but also finished 18th in a field of 29 in the 10km Open Water event, despite never before trying that distance. He quipped afterwards that it was his “first and last” 10km.
- The Olympic Open Water race in the Seine cost him some more history. He was due to be Ireland’s flagbearer in the Closing Ceremony but had to miss it because he spent a night in hospital recovering from a bug he got from his river swim.
- Daniel was a complete outlier from the usual pathway to Olympic glory because he never medalled at European Juniors or made a World Junior final.
Daniel Wiffen
© Inpho Sports Photography / Red Bull Content Pool
- Daniel likes to invent new ‘walk-on’ routines to entertain fans. Before the Olympic 800m final he mimed writing his name in a record book and that’s exactly what he did, winning gold in a new Olympic record.
- Wiffen’s next aim is to win three gold medals at the next Olympics in 2028. “I think about winning three gold medals in LA every single day. There’s always someone younger coming up and you’ve got to figure them out but I’ll have it figured out by the time it comes.”
- His only pre-race superstition is to do some ‘air strokes’ right before he steps up on the block.
- Apart from Playstation, Daniel’s favourite hobby is golf. He took it up in 2024 thanks to his best friend and training partner Lucas Henveaux who plays off scratch. Daniel already plays off 14, even though he rarely gets to play.
- Daniel’s dream day away out of the pool is a round of gold at 9am, lunch, another round of golf and then an evening at the cinema ‘watching something like a Jason Statham action movie!”
- Daniel and Nathan worked as child actors and were extras in the famous Red Wedding scene in Game of Thrones in which their sister Elizabeth played the part of Neyela Frey. When swimming took over the acting had to go.
- Daniel has a pet tortoise called ‘Flash’ who is now 15 years old and lives in the family home in Armagh.
- The only thing that ever upsets Daniel is people who are not punctual. “I’m also a bit OCD about tidiness and having things in order. My mom says my wardrobe looks like Simon Cowell’s.”