Daniel Wiffen happy but disappointed after adding bronze to gold

Men's 1500m freestyle medallists, from right to left, Bronze medalist Daniel Wiffen of Team Ireland, Gold medalist Bobby Finke of Team United States, and Silver medalist Gregorio Paltrinieri of Team Italy, during the awards ceremony at the Paris La Défense Arena during the 2024 Paris Summer Olympic Games in Paris, France. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

Daniel Wiffen has described himself as “happy but disappointed” after adding a 1500m freestyle bronze medal to the 800m he won here in Nanterre to the west of Paris last Tuesday.

The USA’s Bobby Finke claimed gold with a new world record of 14:30.67, which beat by 0.57 the mark set by the controversial Yang Sun of China at the London Olympics in 2012.

The 23-year old Irishman had predicted that it would need a world record time to win this race after the heats on Saturday morning. He wasn’t wrong, but this wasn't the plan.

Gregorio Paltrinieri of Italy shadowed Finke the entire way but never caught the American who took the lead early and never relinquished it. Wiffen came in just shy of nine seconds after the American and just over a second ahead of Hungary’s David Betlehem.

“I’m going in to every race with a mindset to win," he explained. "I came third this time, which is not a bad result. I have been on the other end of it, coming fourth.

“If you get a bronze medal at the Olympics, I’m sure if I said that at the start of the week people would be very happy. But obviously becoming Olympic champion on the third day and then finishing it off on the ninth day, I think it is, it’s a bit sad but overall very pleased.” 

He came in feeling in the ‘best shape’ of his life but, while he was keeping tabs on Finke, he felt he was likely “body-blocked” by Paltrinieri and there were 300m gone when he noticed the American’s kick ahead of him.

He drifted further off the pace as the laps counted up: from almost three seconds adrift after 500, to six-plus after 1,000. It was not the swim he was looking for and came in roughly six seconds short of his previous best.

Wiffen after winning bronze in the men's 1500m freestyle final

“When you are behind in the 1,500 it is hard to get your momentum back and then you could see I was catching but when I was nearly catching up I was kind of finished because it took so much mental energy out of me to catch that up.

“By then I was just fighting for medals, to try and keep my place because I had been fourth before and I didn’t want to be in that position again.” 

A bronze medal is a superb achievement but it is not the colour the Magheralin man wanted. Double world champion in the 800 and 1,500, he had gotten the better of Finke in the shorter distance but not this time.

If he was confident beforehand then he was composed and gracious afterwards, immediately congratulating the gold and silver medallists. Disappointed that his “skills fell apart at the end”, he will still be celebrating tonight.

Finke and Wiffen actually had faster PBs in the 1,500m coming into this so Wiffen’s third is par for what was on paper beforehand. It was also put to him that his bronze made it official that this would be Ireland’s best medal haul in a Games with seven.

“Yeah, yeah, 100 percent. We got three medals [in the pool]. We’ve never had that from two people ever at an Olympics. Actually, I’m not sure about this but I don’t know if a single person from Ireland has ever won two medals at a Games.” 

Michelle Smith, it was put to him, who does retain her medals from Atlanta, despite her later doping ban.

“So, nobody has ever won two medals,” he said. “Yeah, so I’m pretty happy and it’s great to see that world record go as well, I would like to say that.”