Wiffen merges the ordinary with the extraordinary

A few days before surfacing from the shimmering waters of Paris La Défense Arena as an Olympic champion, Daniel Wiffen was sharing his journey to the Games on YouTube. With his twin brother, Nathan, he runs a channel that chronicles the life of a swimmer at the top level. The pair’s videos offer a raw and unfiltered insight into the life of the young man from Armagh: past competition highlights, day-in-the-life vlogs, candid interviews, and all of that good stuff.

Despite gearing up for the biggest night of his life, the Armagh native didn’t shirk away from his content duties. And the videos produced were nothing short of fascinating.

What makes the 23-year-old's ascent to Olympic glory so compelling is his relatable character. Wiffen is both an ordinary guy and an extraordinary athlete – a combination that seems wildly contradictory. We typically come to know about these extraordinary athletes from a distance, living in a rarefied world, their reality barely unrecognisable from ours.

This rather insulated existence can make them seem utterly unrelatable. But Wiffen is different. Everyone knows a Daniel Wiffen, or perhaps a few, just without his boundless reserves of talent. In this way, Wiffen has become a bridge to the extraordinary for the rest of us, a citizen of both worlds.

In the video he posted a day before his victory in the 800-metre freestyle final, he comes across as a quirky Irish lad, one of many you might pluck from any village across Ireland. His authenticity shines through, making his eventual triumph all the more tangible and remarkable.

He doesn’t eat much for breakfast, he admits, scoffing only three sausages and a muffin before heading to the pool. Such a basic morning meal defies everything we thought we knew about the diets of world-class swimmers breaking world records. Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte reportedly consumed over 10,000 calories a day at their peaks, doing everything in their power to maintain the energy needed to gain an edge on their opponents. Wiffen is meanwhile strolling through life with minimal fuss.

He heads to the pool with his mates, chats as he paddles in the water and swims a couple of lengths without the laser-eyed determination you’d associate with a glory-hungry high performance athlete. He heads to a nearby canteen and consumes a relatively meagre lunch and then mucks about dancing with his brother later in the evening. There is little to suggest that the protagonist is an Olympic gold medallist in waiting. There is no entourage of nutritionists, publicists and masseuses, aggressively managing every daily decision with uptight precision. There should be no room for a laissez-faire attitude in a pre-Olympic camp, after all. And yet Wiffen seems intent on ignoring all conventions.

His approach is unorthodox, almost nonchalant, yet it’s this very nonchalance that makes him so intriguing. He is brazenly ordinary with just enough quirkiness to draw in the public. He’s living proof that the path to greatness can be paved with levity and originality, as opposed to pursuing a relentless drive to perfection.

In truth though, this approach perhaps isn’t by design. Wiffen’s rise has simply been so rapid that he hasn’t had the time to assume his new identity. Most Irish people wouldn't have been aware of Wiffen until he broke the 800-metre short course record at last year's European Championships in Romania. In the lead-up to this year's Olympics most people would've been unable to recognise the young Armagh man had they been shown his picture.

He hasn't had time to transform from the sinewy youngster from Magheralin to a dominant force in world swimming. Last Tuesday night though, he completed the transformation, assuring all in attendance that he was indeed deserving of the hype that surrounds him. Although he had stormed to world championship glory a few months ago in Doha, the world and Olympic champion Bobby Finke had skipped it. And the American star was returning to the pool in Paris.

Wiffen swam well throughout but only truly came alive in the final 100 metres, cutting through the water like a human machete to surge into a spectacular lead. Finke had no answers, nor had the rest of a very competitive field.

The rest of the week was enveloped in anticipation, as the Irish public pondered the possibility of another gold medal and, with that, an attempt at the world record. Whispers became murmurs and, by the time Sunday evening arrived, the anticipation could no longer be restrained – everyone was shouting about Wiffen’s date with destiny. But by the time he touched the wall after 30 gruelling lengths of the pool, he had to settle for bronze. Finke had set a blistering pace from the outset to retain his title and, in the process, break the record Wiffen had been targeting.

Coming away from his first Olympic Games with two medals around his neck remains an astonishing achievement by any metric, and will only serve as a hugely valuable experience as he sets out on the next stage of his career as a household name in Ireland and one of the most well-known names in world swimming.

Though Finke was humbled into second in the heats of the 1,500-metre freestyle event, he was able to obliterate his peers from lane seven in the final. Wiffen meanwhile eased to victory in his heat, commanding the final 50 metres with a sense of comfort that belied his effort. Finke had the experience of an Olympic Games to perfect his timing for when it matters most – that will come for Wiffen in time, too.

It’s therefore exciting to consider the treasures that may be left in his locker for Los Angeles and Brisbane. Given his age and the fact that this was his inaugural Olympic Games, there’s every chance that he will go on to become Ireland's most successful Olympian, an accolade that is officially currently held by Michelle Smith de Bruin – though Bohola’s Martin Sheridan has a claim to that record too for his feats while competing for the United States at the beginning of the 20th century.

Whenever the next day with destiny does arrive, you get the sense that the Loughborough University student will simply be treating it as just another day, another Games, another chance to claim more precious metal. He is just an ordinary guy, after all.

An ordinary guy wrapped inside an extraordinary body.