It may not have been the Olympic gold he was hoping for, but Daniel Wiffen took the 1,500 metres freestyle bronze with another heroic effort at the La Defense Arena on Sunday. Wiffen’s bronze brings Ireland’s medal haul at these Games to seven, surpassing the six won in London in 2012.
Instead of Wiffen, Sunday belonged to Bobby Finke from the USA, who’d surrendered his 800m title to the Irishman on Tuesday, as he produced a sensational world record time of 14:30.67 to defend the title he also won in Tokyo.
Silver went to Italy’s Gregorio Paltrinieri in 14:34.55, who won this event in Rio in 2016, with Wiffen holding on for bronze in 14:39.63, in truth never quite in contention to add a second gold here as Finke was simply peerless. Fourth place went to David Betlehem from Hungary in 14:40.91
Finke was also looking to become the first man from the United States to win a medal in Paris in an individual swimming event – a rare scenario in their long history. His time smashed the world record mark of 14:31.02 that belonged to China’s Sun Yang since the 2012 Olympics in London.
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At the 1,000m mark Finke was just inside world record pace, half a body length clear on Paltrinieri, Wiffen a full body length behind. After that Wiffen fell over two seconds down with just over 800m to swim, and his gold medal chances already appeared well out of reach.
“Right now I’m happy but disappointed at the same time,” Wiffen told RTE after the race. “Looking across the week, I can’t be more pleased than to be an Olympic champion, but the bronze medal, I know I said I’d be happy with any medal, but when you take gold in the first race you don’t want less than that.”
Already the first Irish man to win a medal in swimming, the 23-year-old from Armagh will give himself one more shot in the 10km marathon swim in the Seine next Friday.
