Daniel Wiffen arrived in Singapore with the weight of Olympic gold on his shoulders but left the World Championships without defending his 1500m crown. The 24-year-old from Magheralin, Northern Ireland, had battled the aftereffects of an appendicitis attack in June, struggling through the 400m and 800m freestyle before withdrawing from his final event. Yet while his physical setbacks drew sympathy, it was his candid reflections on training that drew equal attention—particularly when he turned his focus toward the United States’ distance swimming “supergroup” in Florida.

Wiffen’s championship campaign never settled into a rhythm. In the 400m freestyle, he placed 16th overall in 3:47.57, a distant mark from his lifetime best of 3:44.35 set in 2023. He did progress to the 800m final, only to finish eighth after fading in the latter stages. “My stomach was in pieces” after the halfway point, he admitted, underscoring the toll his surgery and recovery had taken. By week’s end, he announced his withdrawal from the 1500m. “Just to let everyone know I have medically withdrawn… due to the appendicitis that I suffered from in June,” Wiffen wrote. The decision was pragmatic, but it set the stage for a revealing discussion about his future training path.

That discussion quickly veered into a broader commentary on the Florida-based training collective, home to Bobby Finke, Ahmed Hafnaoui, Kim Woomin, and Katie Ledecky. When asked about his own training plans at the Off The Ball podcast, Wiffen was emphatic. “Never to go to Florida. I don’t really want to train with my direct rivals, to be honest. Like, I don’t want to train with them because I honestly, like, I think you can be too friendly with your rivals.” For Wiffen, the very arrangement that has drawn headlines for its concentration of swimming champions represents a risk rather than an advantage.

He elaborated further on why he has no intention of joining the group, even while acknowledging its talent. “Finke, Haffa Nui, Ahmed Choudy, Katie Ledecky,” he listed, before noting their collective stature. “So all of them are at least world champion or Olympic champion. Yeah. It’s insane.” But to him, that level of overlap is not sustainable. “I’m telling you that it won’t last. It won’t last. They’ll probably, some of it will happen. Yeah. Because you can never put that many personalities on one pool… somebody’s going to clash or somebody’s going to have a bad set one day and snap.”

Instead, Wiffen has mapped out a different approach.

With his recovery requiring time in Ireland, he intends to resume training in California by the end of September. There, he will join Nathan Wiffen and a group of 400m freestylers, whose race-pace strengths he believes complement his own endurance profile. “Realistically, nobody’s going to be able to push me even like my rivals. I doubt they’ll be able to push me on the heart rate side of swimming, long reps, kind of stuff. But on the race pace side, which I’m quite weak at, I’ve got 400 freestylers who are able to push me in California.”

For Wiffen, the path to Los Angeles in 2028 runs not through a collective of rivals but through carefully chosen training partners who sharpen his weaknesses without overlapping with his competitive lane. His skepticism of the Florida model places him apart from a trend embraced by many of the sport’s elite, and his remarks suggest he is as calculating outside the pool as he is in it. Whether his doubts about the American supergroup prove correct remains to be seen, but his decision to stand apart has already defined the next stage of his career.

And just weeks ago, Daniel Wiffen confirmed a decisive change in his training base, leaving Loughborough after five years to split his time between Ireland and stints with Cal’s professional group in California as he targets the Los Angeles Olympics.

Daniel Wiffen charts bold new course with Cal move to sharpen LA Olympic pursuit

Daniel Wiffen confirmed that his long-standing chapter at Loughborough University had ended, bringing closure to the place where he evolved from an untested junior into a world-class champion. His words? 

“When I joined Loughborough, I went in with personal bests of 8:13 and 15:39, and now I’m leaving with personal bests of 7:38 and 14:34.” He acknowledged the role of his coach and training partners in shaping his career, but he also admitted that the environment no longer provided the level of challenge he required. With no peers of similar standing left around him, the decision to move was as much practical as it was aspirational.

The Olympic gold medalist revealed that Ireland would remain his principal swimming base, particularly while recovering from appendicitis surgery. Yet the defining development was his commitment to spend extended periods in California, training with the professional group at Cal-Berkeley. There, he would join his twin brother, Nathan, while also integrating into a setting that included seasoned professionals and promising collegiate athletes. Speaking of this transition, Wiffen wrote, “Now this chapter has come to a close, I will be moving back to Ireland while I rehab from my appendicitis surgery and then will be hopefully joining Nathan in California for periods until LA28.”

For Wiffen, the strategic relocation represented both renewal and necessity. His decision carried a clear objective: To sharpen his preparation for the Los Angeles Olympics by situating himself among competitors capable of matching his intensity. He described Loughborough as a place that had made him “the athlete I am today,” but the move to California signified a conscious shift towards fresh surroundings designed to test his resilience at the highest level. In doing so, he positioned himself not as one closing a career stage, but as one deliberately constructing the next.