IN normal circumstances they are together 24/7, living in each other’s pockets and sharing every aspect of life from morning until night. Twin telepathy? Oh, it’s real too, don’t worry about that.
But the 23-year-old Wiffen twins, Daniel and Nathan, still don’t hold back when there’s a point to be made or an argument to be won.
They used to fight the bit out in their teenage years, competitive edge sometimes spilling over in the midst of marathon PlayStation sessions. But that occasional angst has largely subsided since relocating to Loughborough University, a joint dream of world domination drawing them closer in a way Call of Duty could not.
Part of that dream included the Olympic Games.
Having already competed in Tokyo three years ago, heading to Paris is at least relatively familiar terrain for Daniel. The Wiffens, though, wanted to be there together – only for Nathan to just miss out at May’s Olympic trials, despite smashing his personal best in the 1500m freestyle by 14.63 seconds.
Determined to aid his brother’s bid, Daniel attempted to pace him in the decisive race. It didn’t quite work out how they hoped, the finer details of which remain up for debate.
“He paced me wrong, didn’t he?” smiles Nathan as he turns to Daniel, who immediately bites back.
“So we were meant to be beside each other in the heats. I went two-tenths under the Olympic time for Nathan. We weren’t allowed to go beside each other, so that threw the plan out the window and ended up with Nathan beating me.
“Then we got to the final, but I think I was so nervous about Nathan qualifying - that’s the most nervous I’ve been in my life - and Nathan kind of just decided not to go with me at all.”
“No no no,” comes the immediate interjection, “that’s not what happened. I went out with you from the start but you didn’t go out quick enough. We can watch the video…”
The presence of anybody else is in the room has long since become an irrelevance.
“You were meant to go out quick and then settle in but I settled in on the pace you went out on - that’s not my fault.
“So Nathan didn’t go out fast enough, then I slowed down to try and help him to get back up, and I was like ‘let him go’, maybe he’ll get a second boost and get the time, bit it was too late.
“I mean, it doesn’t really matter,” sighs Daniel, “realistically, I don’t care.”
That may sound cold, but it’s the ultra-pragmatic, no-bullshit space these two inhabit. It doesn’t come from a place of not caring, quite the opposite, but from the reality of where both currently sit on their respective journey.
And it is received in exactly the way it is intended.
“Look, no offence to Nathan, but he was only going to go to the Olympics, he wasn’t going to make a medal, and I’d give him a 10 per cent chance of making a final.
“So going to an Olympics is great, but I think for what we want to do together, we want to be on the podium together.”
“That’s true,” nods Nathan, “realistically LA in four years is where it’s at.”
At that, a line is drawn.
Because, ultimately, they are in this together – always have been, always will be.
Away from the pool, they watch Netflix, play golf. Back when other sports competed for their attention, they loved playing basketball during break time at St Patrick’s College, Armagh, soccer for Moira while Gaelic football and hurling were both dabbled in at St Michael’s, Magheralin.
“We were good at football, not so much at hurling,” says Daniel, “Nathan lost his two front teeth playing…”
“The ball hit me in the face because you didn’t wear gumshields then. I still played the whole match.”
Their horizons have been broadened in Loughborough – new friendships groups, and a social scene that will see them travel to Bali in September before a lads’ holiday to Barcelona.
But swimming, and each other, remain at the very centre of everything; an intuitive compassion and care ensuring the other is never too far from their thoughts.
“You can feel, like, what each other thinks,” says Nathan, before Daniel picks up, “we’re quite good at reading each other’s body language because we do the exact same thing, so we know if we’re feeling the same thing at the same time.
“And then sometimes, if Nathan’s thinking something, I’ll say it. It’s not forced, it just happens…”
One thing Daniel has had to come to terms with during the lead up to the Olympics is the heightened publicity, greater focus and rampant expectation as the Games near.
The last 12 months have seen him burst onto the world stage in spectacular fashion, first obliterating Australian Grant Hackett’s 15 year old 800m world record on the way to gold at last December’s European Short Course Championships in Romania.
Then two months later he became double world champion in Doha, topping the podium after the 800m and 1500m freestyle – a performance which leaves him among the favourites in both disciplines in Paris, and a feat made all the more remarkable considering he was never touted for greatness on the way up.
“It doesn’t really matter to me,” he shrugs.
“I know people probably think I’m going to come away with a medal, and I think that too. I know how I’ve trained…. I know exactly what’s going to happen at the Olympics, in my head.
“You just know by how you train, so I know what’s going to happen, everybody else is just going to have to wait and see.
“Like, I don’t think anybody thought I’d be as good as I was. My assistant coach/physiologist has been taking my blood since I was 15, and he thought I was just going to be at a national level, so I didn’t really know if I was going to be good - I just enjoyed it and that was the main thing, but I don’t think I was on the stepping stones at all.
“When I was 14 or 15 I was on the Irish squad for two years and then got kicked off in 2018 because I wasn’t very good, then in 2019 I got back on it. I think I was just average, really.
“But since I’ve joined Loughborough, I’ve dropped 16 seconds four years in-a-row [off his 1500m time], which is unheard of. It’s the most linear progression you could ever see.”
Yet for all the opportunities his rapid rise has brought, increased profile has tossed us challenges too - with the blurred line between confidence and arrogance confusing some as Wiffen continues to back up belief in his own ability.
“Arrogance is when you say something and don’t do it,” says dad Jonathan, “confidence is when you say it and do.”
Nobody can argue with Daniel’s results in the pool but the Irish mentality, at least when it comes to sporting success, is often at odds with anything seen as braggadocio.
That perception doesn’t rest easily on her son’s broad shoulders, admits mum Rachel.
“His confidence went a bit after the [2023] World Championships when he came fourth, but that made him more determined. He got upset as well because a lot of people said he was a bit arrogant, a bit cocky… he was a bit deflated.
“And I think it was almost among some of the Irish coaches who thought he was giving too much talk.”
“People are just afraid – they’re afraid to fail. I don’t see it that way,” says Daniel.
“It’s a weird thing because I never dreamed of becoming an Olympian, it was always a step on the way towards breaking a world record. But it was never my focus, or my goal.
“In Ireland, if you qualify for an Olympics, you’re a massive star. I think that’s why people struggle to make it at high pressure meets, like Irish trials. We had four people who missed the time just by like a tenth or something, because they’re putting so much pressure on getting this time when really they should just be aiming above the time and trying to aim higher. That’s the way I was looking at it.
“Also, I went in favourite to win gold at the Japan Worlds last year, or at least medal, and I came fourth. But I placed eight the year before that, so it was still progression.
“Realistically I should’ve come away with a medal, but if I hadn’t come fourth I may not have broken the world record in December, or won the World Championships in 2024, twice. So everything happens for a reason.
“I feel like people kind of love me when I win but hate me when I lose. Everybody wants me to win then when I lose, everybody thinks I’m really cocky and arrogant, but it’s only because I say how I feel.
“I don’t think I’m arrogant, I think I’m just quite confident. I mean, if you’re not going to be confident in yourself, you’re not going to win. That’s just how it works.”
The accents have become a target for snipers too. Both Rachel and Jonathan are from Yorkshire, with the twins just two when the family relocated to Magheralin after Jonathan took up a new post with pharmaceutical firm Almac.
Their entire lives, bar those early days and a short stint in India when Jonathan started another job, have been spent in Ireland. All their schooling was here. They have always been a part of the Irish swimming system. They feel Irish.
They are Irish.
“People are always going to have something to pick out,” says Nathan, “we always hear comments about ‘the English one’, that we’re English and not Irish.
“I get that all the time,” adds Daniel, “people always comment on my accent just because our parents have an English accent and I’ve picked it up. But I don’t even remember England, I literally was hardly there; I’ve done everything here.
“It doesn’t really matter to me. I am fairly confident in me as a person, it doesn’t really matter what anybody else is going to say.”
However, with publicity and profile comes the sponsorship that is so vital to Wiffen’s preparations.
While Sport Ireland funding allows him to function as a full-time athlete, training camps that sharpen his steel cost upwards of £20,000 a year. On top of that, he also sponsors Nathan so the pair’s joint pursuit persists – just as it has done since they first started formal lessons in Lisburn Leisureplex as toddlers.
For the last few months leading towards Paris, Nathan has been Daniel’s main training partner in Dublin. Indeed, they had hoped Nathan might be able to stay in the athletes’ village with his sibling - only for the International Olympic Committee to have different ideas.
Instead he will watch from the wings at La Défense Arena with the rest of the family. And while the edge between them has brought Daniel to the top, they hope – and believe – it won’t be too long before Nathan joins him.
“If Nathan wasn’t here I wouldn’t be where I am either. He sacrificed his holiday time to train me.
“But, in training, we’re competitive with each other – like, I can’t let Nathan win a rep. That’s my goal. Nathan’s the only person who’s beaten me in 2024… I let him win so it’s okay.
“But I don’t like losing in training. I hate losing. I’m probably one of the worst losers you’ll ever meet in your life – I get a bit salty. Even if win 29 out of 30 reps, I’ll still be annoyed about the one I lost.
“I have to win everything. Maybe Nathan could control what happens to me in Paris, telepathically tell me...”
“I don’t think you’d listen anyway…”
The pair are back smiling again, ready to go off and attack another day; the same but different, best friends and biggest rivals, determined to drive each other all the way.
