Paris Olympics: Ireland’s Daniel Wiffen in place to be an international superstar

After every event at the Olympics, athletes are obliged to go through an area called the mixed zone. This is where media interviews are conducted, and every competitor is expected to stop if requested.

Reporters mostly congregate along national lines, and it’s not common for an Irish athlete to attract attention from beyond the press from these shores.

One exception has been in rowing, where their status as defending champions makes the men’s lightweight doubles of Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy international news.

Another was in the La Defense Arena, shortly after midday here in Paris yesterday.

The swimmers from the last of the four heats in the men’s 800m freestyle were coming through in dribs and drabs, and the Irish written press was waiting for Daniel Wiffen to finish his broadcast interviews.

We were soon joined by American journalists, eager for any tidbit they could gather about Wiffen. There were reporters there, too, who were servicing the official Olympic media service, which dispatches quotes and reports to all media here, and which is relayed by news agencies around the world.

Wiffen is big news in the world of swimming, a place where the biggest nations traditionally hold sway.

That was immediately apparent on arrival at the venue yesterday morning.

The La Defense Arena is stunning, a remarkable footprint containing sport and business facilities to the west of Paris. It is enormous, with an IFSC-type commercial area to one side. If a company built an indoor arena containing a sports stadium beside the IFSC in the Dublin docklands, you would have an approximation of this place.

Racing 92 has their home here and, in an Olympic-inflected twist, they left the Stade Olympique Yves-du-Manoir for here. That was the stadium used for the Paris Olympics of 1924.

The Arena and all areas around it were packed with fans yesterday morning. Americans and Australians predominated, reflective of how dominant those countries are in swimming.

There were plenty of Chinese visitors, too, but when Ellen Walshe, Danielle Hill and Wiffen took to the pool on their turns, clusters of tricolors appeared.

The noise was terrific, but when any French entrant appeared, it hit new levels.

Swimmers often maintain that they don’t hear the noise when they are competing. They are hearing this.

The place nearly came apart on Sunday night when home star Leon Marchand won gold in the men’s 400m individual medley.

"I always said before that I never hear the crowd when I’m swimming; that one I could hear 100 percent," said Wiffen.

"There were a lot of Irish support. I saw a lot of tricolors in the stand, so pretty happy."

He had good reason to be after a display in the heats of the 400m individual medley that saw him finish as the fastest qualifier.

Coming after his world record-breaking and world titles of recent months, it makes him a firmer favorite to take Ireland’s first gold tonight.

"I was more nervous than I was before the World Championships, but that’s just the Olympics, a different kind of level," he said.

"But I dealt with it quite well. A bit nervous around the first 100m, but then I settled in."

His ambitions for tonight are also helped by the failure of one of his main rivals to make the final. As well as Wiffen, Sam Short of Australia and America’s Bobby Finke were regarded as the main contenders, but Short missed out.

Wiffen’s strong performance means he gets lane four in tonight’s final (8.02pm).

The advantage of a central lane is the perspective it gives of swimmers on either side.

"I’m a middle swimmer," he said. "I like to hold a fast pace no one else can hold. I don’t know some of the names in the final, I’ll need to look out for them; I’m not going to make the mistake in the 400m final in 2021 when some of them won from outside lanes."

He wished Ellen Walshe and Mona McSharry well in their finals last night, but his evening was to be spent off his feet after a ‘good feed’, and then studying the opposition.

Wiffen is the subject of fevered anticipation at home, and it’s striking to see him figure so prominently in discussions within the sport, too.

Ireland has no rich tradition of swimming. There’s plenty of contentious history, of course, but there is not the kind of immersion in and understanding of the sport that there is in other places.

A trip to an Olympic swimming event is a riotous introduction to its status. The color and the noise may be found in other disciplines, too, but under a closed roof, the environment is greatly heightened.

There is severe doubt about whether boxing will make the roster in Los Angeles in 2028, which feels unthinkable given its place in Irish history.

It is dispensable at the Olympics the way all but a handful of sports are and, along with athletics, swimming is one of the immovable anchors of the Games.

The progression of Walshe and McSharry to finals, the excellent performance by Danielle Hill in getting to a semi-final, and of course Wiffen’s startling promise are helping us to understand that a little better.

"Completely different," Wiffen said of the build-up here compared to the 2020 Games.

"In Tokyo, I was just there really, qualified and just tried to keep progressing.

"The past three years have been a blast for me, improving by 15 seconds in the 1500m every time I swam in the water, PB-ing in every international."

It’s bold talk – and the audience for it is growing.

* This article was originally published on Extra.ie.