Daniel Wiffen: Olympic champion motivated by mother’s cancer recovery

Wiffen’s mother is now in full remission and on the road to recovery.

“I’m very proud, because everybody says you need to have a strong woman leading your life. And for me, that’s my mum and she’s very strong,” Wiffen added.

“It’s very nice that I can win all this stuff and be Olympic champion and win Europeans, worlds, and everything but daily life still goes on.

“I’ve got to deal with these things as well, and my family does. So to see my mum overcome that, that’s just new motivation for me, that my family’s as strong as I am, and I’m as strong as my mum is.

“I’ll be dedicating all my wins at the Commonwealth Games to her. So every time I win, I’ll be pointing out to her in the crowd.”

Wiffen has recently returned home with his training base now in Dublin but his mum’s illness had nothing to do with a decision that was purely based on his swimming needs.

With the European Championships following the Commonwealth Games in August it could be a big summer in the pool for the 24-year-old.

“It was an easy process to come back and I definitely identified some things that I wasn’t doing right in California,” he explained.

“That’s the reason why I came back, it was to try and put my head down and actually get some proper work done.

“It’s going well. I’m looking forward to the summer. I’m looking forward to seeing how fast I can push it.

“I don’t want to say I’m going to break a world record, I’ll tell you a bit closer to the time after I do a couple more weeks’ worth of training. But the way it’s going, I’m pretty fast.”