Wiffen Secures Top Seed for 1500m Final; Ireland Relays Crack New Irish Records
Irish swimmers had a busy morning at La Défense as Olympic 800m Gold medallist Daniel Wiffen cruised into the 1500m Final as the top seed, while Ireland’s Men’s and Women’s Relays set new Irish Records to finish eleventh overall.
Olympic Champion Daniel Wiffen has secured a centre lane for Sunday’s 1500m Freestyle Final after a cool and controlled heat swim on Saturday morning. The Armagh man touched in 14:40.34 ahead of 800m Freestyle bronze medallist Gregorio Paltrinieri (14:42.56) of Italy and Tunisia’s Ahmed Jaouadi (14:44.20).
The time is Wiffen’s fourth fastest ever and second fastest in 2024 behind his gold medal world championships swim in Doha (14:34.07).
Speaking after the race Wiffen said ‘I’m not going to lie, I felt like I was carrying a bit of fatigue still. I haven’t really slept properly since the 800m. I’m still getting eight hours but it’s not the perfect sleep that I want.
The start was a bit uncomfortable and then I really settled into the pace, and I was actually kind of surprised that I went that fast. It felt like a 14:50 swim but it was a 14:40, maybe my pace is a bit off in my head, but we’ll see.
I’ve had to park (the 800), put it in the back of my mind. Going into this race I’m looking at it as I haven’t won anything and going in with the same attitude as the 800m final.
I’ll give you a little insight. I am going to try and crack the World Record. If it happens, it happens, and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t, but I think personally that it’s going to take that to win gold. We’ll see.’
The Men’s 1500m Freestyle Final will take place on Sunday at 5.37pm
Both Ireland’s Men’s and Women’s 4x100m Medley Relays secured sixth place in their heats and eleventh overall in new Irish Records.
The Men’s team of Conor Ferguson (Backstroke), Darragh Greene (Breaststroke), Max McCusker (Butterfly) and Shane Ryan (Freestyle) broke the May 2021 Record of 3:34.62, that included Greene and Ryan, in 3:33.81, moving them up four places on the entry rankings. It was the first time an Ireland Men’s Medley Relay competed at an Olympic Games, while Shane Ryan also made history as the first Irishman to swim at three Olympic Games.
Ryan spoke after the race ‘Good, you know it was great to get an Irish Senior Record at the end there, the most important thing and the hardest thing was to get here and we did that, you know going into Doha and making a final there and showing up at the Olympic Games and being faster and that’s what we really want to do at the big meets, to come in and swim faster, look we got the record there, we moved up from 15th to 11th, and you know it’s a tough field out there, it’s the end of the meet, we had to wait a long time for us to swim, so I think we did quite well, keep our heads on our shoulders after a couple of emotional days with Mona and Daniel and everyone else, so it was a really great honour to represent Ireland again, for me a third time, third Olympics, really really cool.’
Olympic bronze medallist in the 100m Breaststroke Mona McSharry, was joined by Danielle Hill (Backstroke), Ellen Walshe (Butterfly) and Grace Davison (Freestyle) in the women’s event. The team broke the 4:01.75 set at the World Championships in Fukuoka in 2023 that qualified them for Paris swimming a combined 4:00.12. It was also the first time since 1972 that Ireland have had a team in the event.
Commenting after the race McSharry said ‘I’m super happy, really proud of the girls, you know I think we all got up here on the second last day and performed, it was so much fun and everyone brought really good energy and it was nice, it’s much easier to go into a race, especially a relay, when everyone’s excited to do it and we were all really happy this morning so it was good.’
Walshe added ‘It’s been amazing and I think my individual races were priority for me and it was I think once they were finished focus on the relay with the girls and I’d just like to give a shoutout to Victoria (Catterson) as well, we qualified the relay in Fukuoka in the Summer and it takes a team to get the team over the line, so shoutout to her, we wouldn’t have been here without her. We went out there and gave it absolutely everything, we could have possibly dreamed of to get an Irish Record to finish out the week.’
In the Women’s 50m Freestyle Danielle Hill clocked her third fastest time ever to finish eighth in her heat and twenty first overall in 25.02. The Larne swimmer has had a busy week competing in the Women’s Freestyle Relay and 100m Backstroke as well as Saturday mornings two events, progressing to the semi-final of the Backstroke event.
Results:
Women 50m Freestyle Danielle Hill 25.02 (21st)
Men 1500m Freestyle Daniel Wiffen 14:40.34 (1st)
Men 4x100m Medley Relay Ireland 3:33.81 (11th) ISR
Conor Ferguson, Darragh Greene, Max McCusker, Shane Ryan
Women 4x100m Medley Relay Ireland 4:00.12 (11th) ISR
Danielle Hill, Mona McSharry, Ellen Walshe, Grace Davison
Sunday 4th August Schedule
Men 1500m Freestyle Final Daniel Wiffen 5.37pm
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