Just because you’re a world record holder doesn’t mean you’re having it all your own way, and Daniel Wiffen now faces a fascinating race for a medal in the 800m freestyle at the World Aquatics Championships in Doha.
After breaking that 800m world record at the European Short Course Championships in Romania just two months ago, Wiffen is hoping to bring that form to the long course pool, and duly qualified second fastest overall from Tuesday morning’s five heats in Doha.
Wiffen touched home second in 7:46.90 behind Luca De Tullio, the 20-year-old Italian surprisingly the fastest qualifier with his 7:46.52. Behind them, in fourth, was Gregorio Paltrinieri, the now 29-year-old Italian who won this event back in 2019, and the Olympic 1500m freestyle champion from Rio 2016.
The last heat, won by the German Sven Schwarz from Germany in 7:46.95, also saw a couple more medal contenders qualify, namely Mykhailo Romanchuk from Ukraine in third, who won Olympic bronze in Tokyo, and Australia’s Elijah Winnington in fourth, who won silver in the 400m final on Sunday evening.
“I did try not to go too hard,” said Wiffen, who also holds the European long course record in the event with his 7:39.19. “I mean it’s not a stacked field here, so doing the 800m is trying to go as slow as possible to still make it back. I knew it was going to be tight and I knew exactly what pace the others were going, so I didn’t want to leave it to chance in the heats, top two was what we wanted.
That final is set for 4.02pm on Wednesday afternoon (Irish time), the 22-year-old from Armagh clearly up for the challenge, finishing fourth in both the 800m and 1500m events at last year’s World Championships in Fukuoka.
“But I’m looking forward to it [the final], getting into my preferred schedule now, the 800m and 1500m, so yeah I’m looking forward to it, it’s going to be a great race.”
By then, Ireland may have won its first ever medal at these championships, Mona McSharry neatly positioned to go where no Irish swimmer has gone before when she swims her 100m breaststroke final later this evening.
After two highly competent swims on Monday, McSharry progressed to the final ranked second fastest of the lot, Tuesday evening’s medal showdown (5.45pm Irish time) likely to be a race between herself and two Chinese opponents. Chief among them is Tang Qianting, the 19-year-old winning the second semi-final in 1:05.36, ahead of McSharry, the 23-year-old from Sligo touching home in 1:06.11, with the second Chinese swimmer Yang Chang third in 1:06.27.
Irish swimmers have previously won three medals at the World Short Course (25m) Championships, in Shane Ryan (2018 bronze), Ellen Walshe (2021 silver) and McSharry herself (2021 bronze), but never in the long-course Olympic size pool.
Also on Tuesday morning, Victoria Catterson swam under the two-minute mark for the third time in her career in the 200m freestyle heats, touching sixth in her heat in 1:59.75.
That left her 19th best overall, moving up seven places in the rankings and breaking into the top-20 for the first time: “I just know that I’ve put everything into training the past while,” she said, “and I know I have so much better in me, it’s just frustrating to be on high 1:59s yet again, I’m so much better than that.”
Darragh Greene also returned to the pool for his final individual event of the championships, the 50m breaststroke, his 27.76 good enough for 18th overall, missing a semi-final place by just .14 of a second.
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