2026 Irish Open Championships: Daniel Wiffen Claims 1500 Free Gold

2026 IRISH OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPS & COMMONWEALTH GAMES TRIALS

• Wednesday, April 8th – Sunday, April 12th
• The Aurora Sports & Leisure Centre
• LCM (50m)
• SwimSwam Preview
• Meet Central
• Psych Sheet
• Live Results

The 2026 Irish Open Championships and Commonwealth Games Trials kicked off today from the Aurora Sports & Leisure Centre.

The five-day affair is the biggest domestic meet on this year’s calendar, with the competition representing a primary determiner of the Irish rosters for the 2026 Commonwealth Games, European Championships and European Junior Championships.

The Irish Open’s schedule includes heats, a junior final, B-Final and Championship Final for the 50m, 100m, 200m and 400m distances of each discipline. The Championship Final includes the fastest 10 athletes of any age from the heats, with a maximum of two non-Irish athletes within the final. The 800m and 1500m freestyle events will have Heat Declared Winner events, with the fastest heat swimming as the A-Final.

You can view the entirety of the Swim Ireland Selection Policies using our SwimSwam Preview link above.

Olympic champion Daniel Wiffen got it done for gold in the men’s 1500m free, rocking a time of 14:51.38 for a new season-best.

The 25-year-old Cal swimmer’s performance tonight ranks 11th-best in the maestro’s career, one that includes a national record of 14:34.07 from the 2024 World Championships. His effort here easily cleared the selection criteria to make the grade for this year’s major LCM championships.

As for twin brother Nathan Wiffen, he clocked 15:20.88 to finish well behind but still miles ahead of 19-year-old bronze medalist Daragh Horgan‘s effort of 16:09.03.

Wiffen now ranks #2 in the world at the moment, sitting only behind world-leader Kaito Tabushi of Japan, who cranked out a lifetime best of 14:45.57 at last month’s Japan Swim.

Speaking after the race Wiffen said ‘I’d say it’s 50/50 as to whether I’m happy or not with the swim. I need to look at the splits, I felt really good up to like 1000m, and then I felt like I kind of faded away a little bit and was seizing up. That’s good for an 800m, that’s good for all other events, whereas with the 1500 sometimes you go unbelievable and then sometimes it’s not good at all, and that was kind of middle ground, so I’m pretty pleased, but also kind of disappointed.’

In spite of dominating the race, Wiffen came up well short of the goals he stated in an interview with BBC last week. He said he wanted to be around 14:40 in the 1500 free (he swam 14:42 at this meet last year), 7:42 in the 800, and 3:43 in the 400.

Additional Notes

• Fleur Lewis got her hand on the wall first in the women’s 800m free, hitting 8:48.33 as the sole swimmer under the 8:50 barrier.
• The men’s 100m free saw 21-year-old Evan Bailey clear the field in 48.94, getting to the wall over half a second ahead of the next-closest competitor.
• 19-year-old Grace Davison was too quick to catch in the women’s 100m free, registering 54.88 as the gold medalist. That outperformed Danielle Hill, who settled for silver in 55.92 followed by Victoria Catterson‘s effort of 56.12, which earned her the bronze medal. Davison was quicker in the morning heats, registering a new Irish national record of 54.45. Eighteen-year-old Davison, who has now qualified for the Commonwealth Games and European Aquatics Championships, spoke after the race ‘I’m really happy with that (day), but if I’m honest I’m probably a little bit disappointed with tonight, I wanted to go a bit quicker, I was 54.4 this morning and 54.8 there. But, it’s all learning for me, and I think a big thing for me is learning to be quicker in the morning, so when I do go to the international stage I can progress through the rounds, so if anything, it’s interesting to see that I can go quicker in the morning than in the final. I’m really happy to get all those times out of the way on the first day of the competition, it’s pretty cool.’