Paris: 2024: Daniel Wiffen targets more Olympic medals after historic night

As if one Olympic gold medallist wasn’t enough, after waiting for so long, within an hour of Wiffen’s success, Jack McMillan also became an Olympic champion.

This was a second appearance at a Games for the Bangor swimmer who competed for Ireland in Tokyo before transferring to Great Britain.

McMillan is based at the University of Stirling and trains alongside some of the very best Team GB swimmers, including his Olympic team-mate Duncan Scott, so the switch made sense.

After finishing fifth at the Olympic trials, he was selected as a relay-only swimmer for Paris.

His job was to make sure the men’s 4x200m freestyle relay team reached the final while Scott and individual silver medallist Matt Richards were either rested or were swimming other events in the morning.

McMillan did his job to perfection, in fact he swam faster than the Tokyo individual 200m freestyle champion Tom Dean.

However, with Richards and Scott drafted back into the final line-up, McMillan had to watch as they stormed to victory, defending their Olympic title.

“The atmosphere here is just unbelievable, it’s incredible,” reflected McMillan.

“It’s my first Olympics with Team GB, so I’m pretty proud of myself for getting here and obviously for the team.”

It was a night to remember for both swimmers, and for Northern Ireland sport, but stay tuned as there could be more good news from Paris just around the corner.