800 m freestyle, men, 25 m pool

What to remember

Otopeni, Romania, hosted the European Short Course Championships in December 2023. On the 10th, Ireland's Daniel Wiffen swam the 800 m freestyle there in 7 min 20.46 s, in a 25 m pool.

The freestyle specialist kept the results coming in the following months. At the 2024 World Championships in Doha he won the 800 m and 1500 m freestyle, becoming the first Irish man to win a World Championships medal. At the Paris Olympics that same year he won the 800 m freestyle with an Olympic record of 7:38.19 and took bronze in the 1500 m. In 2023, in Dublin, he had also won the inaugural European Under-23 title in the 1500 m freestyle.

The men's 800 m freestyle is a very recent Olympic event: it was first held at the Games only in 2020, while women have raced it since 1968. World Aquatics keeps short course and long course world records separately.