Daniel Wiffen adds Best Male Swimmer to his two golds at World Championships

Mona McSharry finished eighth in the 50m Breastroke Final.

Sun, 18 Feb, 2024 - 16:38

Fiona Halligan

Double World Champion Daniel Wiffen named Best Male Swimmer at the World Aquatics Championships in Doha to add to the golds he won in the 800m and 1500m Freestyle.

Wiffen won his second gold medal, having won the 800m Freestyle World Champion on Wednesday, of the championships Sunday afternoon with a superb win in the 1500m Freestyle final.

Wiffin won in a time of 14:34.07 to claim a personal best time in a dominant performance. Wiffin was seeded sixth for the race and swam the course from lane seven.

Turkey's Kuzey Tuncelli set the early pace with Wiffen following suit but by the 150m mark, Wiffen took over.

Wiffen led by six seconds at the halfway mark and was on course for a world-record pace.

At the 1000m mark, the closest to the 22-year-old was Ukraine's Mykhailo Romanchuk who was over eight seconds behind.

His pace slowed in the closing third but still swam to an easy victory to claim gold and set a new Irish record time of 14.34.07 which was just two and a half seconds shy of the championship record and six off the world record set by Sun Yang at the 2012 Olympics.

With Wiffen so far ahead of the field the main race was between silver and bronze with Germany's Florian Wellbrock hitting the wall for second place in 14:44.61 and France's David Aubry in 14:44.85.

Speaking after his win Wiffin said: “The progression from the 400 to the 800 to the 1500, I’m just so happy to come away with a PB and two world titles.”

Wiffen went on to say that he had spoken with his coach about approaching today's final.

“I was talking about it before with my coach Andy. Go out a bit faster than everybody else and be in my own lane somewhere and race and get out ahead and really focus on what I was going to do."

Wiffen spoke about his goal to chase down the World Record.

“It’s definitely one of my goals to try and beat that at some point. I’m 22, I’ve got at least another eight years, another couple of Olympics in me. I'm sure I’ll do it at some stage. I hope to be the person to do it.”

Elsewhere, Sligo's Mona McSharry finished in eigth place in her 50m Breaststroke final. This was McSharry's third final of the championships and came into the final with the joint-sixth-fastest qualifying time.

But the long week showed in the closing metres finishing in a time of 30.96 which is .33 slower than her semi-final performance yesterday.

World record holder Lithuanian Ruta Meilutyte won in 29.40 .11 ahead of Tang Qianting from China with Italy's Benedetta Pilato in third in 30.01.

Earlier on Sunday history was made when the men's 4x100m medley team reached the final while the women's relay team booked their place in the 2024 Olympic Games.

Conor Ferguson (backstroke), Darragh Green (breaststroke), Max McCuster (butterfly) and Shane Ryan (freestyle) finished seventh in the medley final in a time of 3:35.28 in a historic first ever relay final for Ireland.