Daniel Wiffen thrilled that doper Sun Yang's world record finally beaten
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Daniel Wiffen made it his business to express just how happy he was for Bobby Finke to have broken the 12-year-old world record that Sun Yang has held in the men’s 1500m freestyle after finishing two places adrift of the American here on Saturday night. Twice.
Sun Yang won dozens of major championship medals, including Olympic gold in London 2012 when his eye-popping time of 14:31.02 was recorded. He served a three-month ban for testing positive for a banned substance two years later.
And he missed the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 when he was, ultimately, banned for four years after he and others were found to have smashed vials containing blood samples taken at an out-of-competition test in 2018.
Finke swam 14:30.67 at the weekend.
Wiffen said on Monday night that everybody in the swimming community wanted the record broken. He was straight up with the reasons why – in trademark Wiffen style – when asked to expand on the reasons.
“Why. I mean it speaks for itself. It’s set by Sun Yang, I mean, it's not really… I mean, the guy doped. People want it gone because they want the records to look clean. I wanted it gone personally because I want to see the sport progress.
“I think it’s shown a lot of growth because everyone was getting so close and so close every time. I know Bobby only brought it down by 0.2 [sic] but it is still progression and my goal obviously next season is to re-break it and make that sub-14:30.”
These ideals aren’t a new departure for Wiffen. Clean sport is something he has spoken about time and again through his journey from swimming unknown to Olympic champion and bronze medallist here.
“Sport has to be clean to make it fair and everybody is a role model on that. Everybody wants to be on a level playing field and that’s exactly what I want. I said it publicly so many times that I am probably drug tested more than anybody.
“This competition was the same. I’m actually very happy because this was the first competition I have been to where they drug-tested every single medallist, which is pretty unreal. I think that’s great to move on the sport and it will be great if they keep it up.”
The issue of drugs has run through what has otherwise been a hugely successful swimming meet at the Paris La Defense Arena. It was always likely to happen after the controversial story that emanated in China pre-Games.
Eleven Chinese swimmers were allowed to compete at these Olympics after it had been found that they previously tested positive for small amounts of banned performance drugs with the results explained away as having emanated from food contamination.
Team GB’s Adam Peaty went as far as saying that he may step away from the sport because it “hurts so much” after their 4x100m medley team finished fourth behind a Chinese team that contained two of the eleven athletes from the doping controversy.
The British swimmer isn’t alone in being unhappy with the manner in which World Aquatics and the World Anti-Doping agency has handled the case, but Wiffen was unconcerned by the presence of Chinese swimmers in Paris.
“Didn’t bother me. I mean, they’re all getting tested the same as everybody else and that whole story is gone now. They have shown it with their drugs test and that’s it. They have swam fast and I’m sure it was great for their nation to show that they are a clean nation.”
Meanwhile, women’s 100m breaststroke bronze medallist Mona McSharry has made it clear that she is unlikely to still be competing internationally come the next Olympic Games in LA. The Sligo swimmer intimated as much last week but was even stronger on it on Monday.
“Not right now. 2024 was written for me for a long, long time, from about 15 I would say. And so I think I just want to take it one year at a time. As of right now, I don’t think I will still be swimming in four years. It is a long time.
“I kind of plan to be done before that. But, I am just going to take it one year at a time before I see how I feel. Definitely one more year in college because I have to and then after that it’s kind of all up in the air.”