After last week’s breakdown of his 800 free gold medal, Irish national teamers Daniel and Nathan Wiffen analyzed Daniel’s bronze medal-winning performance in the 2024 Olympic 1500 final.
Overall, Daniel was happy to win his second medal of the meet following a gold and Olympic and European record in the 800. He also appreciated the electric atmosphere in La Defénse Arena during the event, as it was the last individual swimming event of the Games. However, he felt that some parts of his race fell short of his expectations.
His first self-criticism came in the opening portion of the race, saying he went out too slow. Event winner Bobby Finke on the other hand, took what Daniel called a “change in strategy” and set the pace from the beginning. Daniel didn’t realize just how far ahead Finke was until later in the race.
“I just decided to be an idiot and go really slow,” Daniel said, noting that his opening splits in the preliminaries were faster than in the finals. Daniel was the top qualifier out of the heats, turning in a 14:40.34. He says the heats had the highest top eight threshold time ever by seven seconds.
As the race progressed, Daniel felt he got more into a groove, solidifying his 3rd place spot for good at the 400 meter mark. While the race continued, Nathan and Daniel updated viewers on their plans for the rest of the year. After a vacation, the pair will finish up their degrees and university swim careers at Loughborough University. They will then attend the Short Course World Championships in December, Nathan’s first World Championship meet.
Nathan, who is Daniel’s twin brother and training partner, lowered his own 1500 personal best by 15 seconds this year. He was also a two-time finalist at the European Championships earlier in the summer.
As the 1500 race progressed, Finke and silver medalist Gregorio Paltrinieri distanced themselves from Daniel. By the final 50, he felt it . Finke won in a world record time of 14:30.67 and Paltrinieri touched second in 14:34.55. Daniel’s final time was 14:39.63, off from his personal best of 14:34.09 from the 2024 World Championships. He became the first Irish swimmer with multiple Olympic medals this century.
The twins capped off the blog with some distance freestyle advice:
- Have a flat hand on the catch and high elbow on the recovery
- Controlling your head position while breathing is important to keep your body streamlined
- When it comes to pacing, if you think you’re holding a pace, you’re probably actually getting slower
The Wiffen twins have been vlogging their lives as professional swimmers since 2020 and frequently do race analysis on their channel, giving rare insight into athletes’ critiques of their own performances. They also host swim clinics together with their brother Ben, who is a swim coach of ten years.
