Irish Olympic gold medalist Daniel Wiffen recently appeared on the Off The Ball podcast, where he shared his thoughts on the world class distance group forming at the University of Florida.
Olympic Champion Daniel Wiffen on the distance group forming at Florida with Ahmed Jaouadi, Ahmed Hafnaoui, Katie Ledecky, and Bobby Finke:
“It won’t last… Something will happen. Because you can never put that many personalities in one pool.”pic.twitter.com/P1GJFoQolp
— Swim Updates (@swimupdates) August 26, 2025
Four of the best distance swimmers in the world now train at the University of Florida. Katie Ledecky and Bobby Finke, who have trained under Anthony Nesty for years, are being joined this fall by Ahmed Jaouadi and Ahmed Hafnaoui, both of whom are double world champions in distance freestyle.
“It won’t last”, Wiffen says. “You can never put that many personalities in one pool.”
The statement came when discussing Wiffen’s desire to train with a more competitive group. Wiffen described Florida’s group as the number one distance group in the world, but he doesn’t necessarily want to train there. “I think you can get too friendly with your rivals sometimes.”
“To me, from the outside”, Wiffen said, “It probably wouldn’t work if I was to join it.”
Instead, Wiffen will be joining the pro group at Cal once he completes rehabilitation for the appendicitis that ailed him ahead of the recent World Championships in Singapore. That will likely be at the end of September.
Wiffen’s decision to change training groups is tied to his future goals in the sport. “Three olympic golds in L.A, that’s my goal.” He made it clear that being surrounded by a strong training group was critical to achieving that goal.
He described Cal as having “the second best group in the world for distance freestyle.” At Cal he will train alongside his brother, Nathan Wiffen, and Belgian National Record holder Lucas Henveaux.
Specifically, he detailed race-pace training as an area where it is important for him to have strong training partners. He described it as one of his weaknesses, and said that there are 400 freestylers at Cal that can push him in that arena.
Wiffen has spent the last five years training with Andi Manley at Loughborough University.
That’s why people normally don’t put their goals out there because you guys bash them.
Daniel Wiffen is as confident as they come (and an Olympic gold medalist).
Haters gonna hate.
As much as I want Bobby Finke to trounce, I support Daniel Wiffen 100%.
Does Daniel Wiffen have a RedBull endorsement?
Yes
People (Americans?) are unreasonably mad at him for expressing an opinion. Moreover, he laid it out without insulting anyone and explained his reasoning… The reactions here are a bit much.
There is no reasoning to say Cal is the 2nd best distance group in the world. Absolutely 0
A lot of people don’t read the article
Says the guy going to train to a non-distance program to train distance.
He’s not wrong. Look at any of the Pro Groups in the past that tried this. All disbanded or disfunction ran rampant behind the scenes.
Sounds like he’s been drinking the same water that fueled Connor McGregor’s audacious mouth.
nostradamus wiffen – if he could just tell me tomorrow’s powerball numbers i can save this sport.
Yeah it rubbed me the wrong way when he claimed that those guys, 3 of whom have beaten him and have faster PBs than him (except for Finke in the 800) wouldn’t be able to hang with him. That’s insanely arrogant lol.
You’d think that losing the 800 free by 22 seconds to Ahmed would give you some respect for him, illness or no illness.