Whatever advantage comes with being the world record holder almost brought Daniel Wiffen to a second gold medal, but in the end the Armagh swimmer had to settle for bronze in the 800 metres freestyle on day five of the European Short-Course Championships in Lublin, Poland.
Wiffen’s third medal of the week came shortly after Ellen Walshe came through to win a brilliant silver in the 200m individual medley, bringing the Irish medal tally to six in all, including two gold.
Walshe is not finished yet, and just a half an hour after winning silver, she booked her place in Sunday’s 200m butterfly final, the 24-year-old from Dublin again coming through to nail second.
Wiffen was back in the pool after successfully defending his 1,500m freestyle title in thrilling style on Thursday night, also winning bronze in the 400m, only this time there was no stopping Zalan Sarkany from Hungary, who won gold in 7:26.84.
RM Block
Wiffen had blasted past Sarkany in the last 50m of the 1,500m freestyle, and despite chasing hard again from the halfway mark, Sarkany held on, with Lucas Henveaux from Germany coming through for silver in 7:28.03. Wiffen was third in 7:30.14.
“Honestly I think that was the hardest swim if my life, I tried to come through at 400m, but had to kill myself basically,” said Wiffen. “Proud of myself how I came back, but not at how I lost that race.
“I’m the world record holder in this event, they were over six seconds off my best, but I knew I’d be tired, I’ve come through a lot the last couple of weeks. So happy to be on the podium, it’s a massive bonus I won the other day, so I can’t complain. I didn’t see a medal in the 400m.”
Two years ago he won this title with a world record of 7:20.46, but it’s just three months since the 24-year-old Wiffen underwent surgery on his appendix, also recently moving to a new training base in California. The Olympic 800m champion made his first big breakthrough in the 25-metre pool in Otopeni, Romania two years ago, winning the 400m-800m-1,500m treble.
It means Irish swimmers have now won freestyle medals in the 200m (bronze for Evan Bailey), 400m, 800m and 1,500m.
Walshe was superb in adding to Ireland’s medal tally, storming through in the penultimate stroke, the breaststroke, to win silver in 2:04.78, just .03 off her Irish record. Dutch star Marrit Steenbergen won another gold medal in a European record of 2:01.83.
“I’ve been waiting this whole competition for my main event,” she said. “Seeing how good the guys have been gives me a lot of confidence, knowing what I can do and to see the team kill it is so good.”
Earlier, Adam Bradley set his first Irish junior record in the heats of the 50m breaststroke, winning in 27.09 seconds. John Shortt, who won gold in the 200m backstroke, clocked a personal best of 23.88 in the 50m backstroke, placing second in his heat, just not enough to progress this time.
Bailey was the best of a trio of Irish swimmers in the 50m freestyle heats, the 200m freestyle bronze medallist clocking 22.11.
In the USA overnight, Mona McSharry won her second medal at the Toyota US Open (50m) claiming joint silver with Canada’s Alexanne LePage in the 100m breaststroke in 1:06.81. USA’s Alex Walshe won gold in 1:06.55. McSharry next races the 200m breaststroke.
