Daniel Wiffen spearheads swimming team for Team Ireland

PARIS BOUND: Swimmers, from left, Danielle Hill, Grace Davison, Victoria Catterson and Erin Riordan during the Team Ireland Paris 2024 team announcement for Aquatics at the National Aquatic Centre on the Sport Ireland Campus in Dublin. Pic: Seb Daly/Sportsfile

The Olympic Federation of Ireland has announced the its largest team to compete in swimming and aquatics for Team Ireland at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. 

World Champion and World Record holder Daniel Wiffen will spearhead the swimming team which is compete in ten individual events and three relay events across the nine days of competition starting on July 27 and commencing on August 4. 

Ciara McGing joins Jake Passmore in the diving team which will see Irish biggest diving contingent to day at the Olympics with the duo competeing between August 5-8.

It's a second Olympics for Mona McSharry, Danielle Hill and Ellen Walshe with Erin Riordan, Grace Davison and Victoria Catterson all making Olympic debuts. At 16, Davison is the youngest member of Team Ireland across all sports.

Tom Fannon, Shane Ryan, Darragh Greene, Max McCusker and Conor Ferguson make up the Team Ireland's swimming squad.  The Men's 400m Medley relay of Ferguson, Greene, McCusker and Ryan will be attempting to replicate their swim from the World Championships final back in February. 

This is Ryan's third Games as he becomes the first Irish male swimmer to achieve this whilst its a second Games for Greene while Ferguson and McCusker make their Olympic debuts. 

Team Leader for the Aquatics section of Team Ireland Jon Rudd is looking forward to Paris. 

“The largest team and the most competitive team ever, says it all. These athletes have been progressing, gaining confidence and delivering in key moments ever since we said farewell to Tokyo. 

"We have numerous athletes here that sit amongst the very best in their events on a worldwide basis and there isn’t a swimming or a diving day that anyone can afford to miss. Our individual event athletes are all high performers in the truest sense and our three relays are at full strength. 

"It’s a real pleasure to be able to name twelve swimmers to this team and to also add Ciara to the diving team alongside Jake. 

"There’s talent, ambition and dedication across all of those that will be on the plane with us and we have an excellent team of staff to support them through the Holding Camp which starts on the 16th July, through to the competition days themselves. We know that the island of Ireland will all be behind us – and that spurs us on even more”.