Irish swimmer smashes his own Irish record and sets a new European record in fast final
One of the fastest 800m freestyle races in history left Daniel Wiffen just shy of making Irish swimming history, as the 22 year-old touched home in fourth at the World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan.
After a thrilling race over the 16 lengths, Wiffen was sitting in fourth for long stages, briefly dropping back to fifth, before hunting down the leaders again in the last 50m. His time of 7:39.19 smashed his own Irish record of 7:43.81 set in Tuesday’s heat and is also a new European record. Ahmed Hafnaoui from Tunisia, the Olympic champion in the 400m freestyle, took gold in 7:33.00, ahead of the Sam Short, the teenager from Australia, who won silver in 7:37.76, with Bobby Finke from the USA, the defending champion, third in 7:38.67.It marked another major leap forward for the Armagh swimmer, who was introduced to the Fukuoka crowd as the “new big name in distance swimming”.
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