DANIEL Wiffen was barely out of the pool on Sunday night when he declared “that record had to go” after watching Bobby Finke pull away to claim 1500m freestyle gold at La Defense Arena.
In beating Wiffen into bronze medal position, with Gregorio Paltrinieri taking silver, the American’s time of 14:30.67 also smashed a 12-year-old world record that had hung over the sport like a dark cloud.
The previous holder was Sun Yang, in 14:31.02, on his way to claiming Olympic gold at London 2012. However, two years later the Chinese swimmer served a three-month ban after testing positive for a banned substance.
Sun Yang was later 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.
That’s why, even in the midst of a bronze medal tinged with disappointment at missing out on gold, Wiffen was delighted to see Finke write a new chapter.
“I think everybody wanted it gone, the whole community of swimming wanted it gone. 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, like, 0.2 but it is still progression and my goal obviously next season is to re-break it and make that sub-14:30.”
And yet, even at these Games, the issue has been inescapable after 11 Chinese swimmers were allowed to compete in Paris, even after it had been found that they previously tested positive for small amounts of banned performance drugs - with food contamination offered as the reason.
Indeed, Adam Peaty indicated he may step away from the sport after Team GB’s 4x100m medley team finished fourth behind a Chinese team that contained two of the 11 athletes from the doping controversy.
“One of my favourite quotes in sport is that there is no point winning if you’re not winning fair,” he said.
“I think you know that in your heart. If you touch and you know you’re cheating, then you’re not really winning.”
Wiffen, though, was unconcerned.
“Didn’t bother me,” said the 23-year-old.
“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.”
Yet the issue of clean sport is something Wiffen has spoken on, and been asked about plenty given his own meteoric rise in recent years – with the Magheralin man insisting he is “probably drug tested more than anybody”.
“Sport has to be clean to make it fair and everybody is a role model on that, honestly.
“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 drug tested probably the most out of everybody.
“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 for all competitions.”
