PARIS 2024 SUMMER OLYMPICS
LIVE RECAP
Tonight we witnessed the final of the men’s 800m freestyle at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France, and the top competitors delivered a memorable race.
In a fight to the finish, it was Irish Daniel Wiffen who touched the wall first, setting a time of 7:38.19 to beat American Bobby Finke by just over half a second and claim the podium.
Finke settled for silver in 7:38.75, while Italian veteran Gregorio Paltrinieri earned bronze in 7:39.38.
Wiffen was one of the favorites entering this final, as he holds the European record with his time of 7:39.19 set at the 2023 World Championships.
Wiffen’s time of 7:38.19 took exactly one second off his previous European record and also produced a new Olympic record, easily surpassing the 7:41.28 set by Ukrainian Mykhailo Romanchuk in Tokyo.
With this gold medal, Wiffen became the first Irish Olympic champion in a swimming event in history.
Additionally, Wiffen, trained at Loughborough, is the first Northern Irish athlete to reach the Olympic podium in any sport since Stephen Martin and Jimmy Kirkwood accomplished the feat as members of the Great Britain hockey team in 1988.
He is the first Irishman to win an individual gold medal since Mary Peters won the pentathlon at the 1972 Games in Munich.
- Daniel Wiffen (IRE) – 7:38.19 ***NEW OLYMPIC RECORD***
- Bobby Finke (USA) – 7:38.75
- Gregorio Paltrinieri (ITA) – 7:39.38
- Ahmed Jaouadi (TUN) – 7:42.83
- Sven Schwarz (GER)/David Aubry (FRA) – 7:43.59
- Luca de Tullio (ITA) – 7:46.16
- Elijah Winnington (AUS) – 7:48.36