THEY say twins do not always need to talk in order to communicate with each other.
But hearing his brother Nathan’s voice in La Defense Arena provided the calm before Storm Daniel.
Wiffen may have walked out with a pep in his step but he admitted that his nerves were playing up as he prepared to dive into the pool.
He said: “I was not relaxed but the only voice I heard in the crowd was my twin brother Nathan’s.
“That’s what kept me level-headed when I walked out.
“It was written in the stars.
“I said it before, Bastille Day is my birthday and it’s 100 years since Ireland competed.
“And Armagh winning was the other one. I knew that I missed one.
“We’re All-Ireland champions and Olympic gold medallists, what a great county.
“But there was also a storm at nine o’clock.
“I said to my coach Steve Beckerleg, ‘We’re renaming that storm, Storm Daniel’, because that was the time the 800m was on.
“I have been training for every different scenario that is going to happen.
“Normally I would only train one way by holding on and burning everybody out in the middle.
“But I know the Olympics are different and you don’t know how you are going to feel in the first 100 metres.
“My first 300m was terrible. My stroke was all over the place.
“I was just so nervous that I couldn’t get any stroke in but luckily I had a good enough easy speed to keep it going and I was still in the race.
“Then my goal was to keep building and building . . . ”
As had happened in the heat, Australian 400m specialist Elijah Winnington had gone out hard and led for most of the first half of the race.
But Wiffen — fourth at the 150m mark — never panicked and had overhauled him by the midway point, with American Bobby Finke moving into second.
It became apparent that Gregorio Paltrinieri was a threat as the Italian first of all overhauled Finke and then started to eat into Wiffen’s lead which was down to one hundredth of a second by the 600m mark.
And it was no surprise when he then overtook the Armagh man and he led by 0.67 seconds at the 650m mark and 0.78 seconds with 100m to go.
But Wiffen fought back in those final two lengths and was within one-tenth of a second of the leader with 50m to go at which point he blew him away.
He finished in a time of 7:38.19, shaving more than three seconds off the previous Olympic record set by Ukraine’s Mykhailo Romanchuk in Tokyo.
Finke finished ahead of Paltrineri too but the fact that all three were well within the old Games record showed just what an epic race it had been with Wiffen keeping an eye on the Yank in the closing stages.
He said: “I was literally looking at Bobby Finke.
“That’s all I was doing. I was like, ‘This guy comes about the fastest’ . . . well, not the fastest anymore.
“I was like we need to have at least a body length on him.
“I was doing this weird lopy stroke to try to have a look.
“I was dying for the last 20 metres because my arms were in so much pain.
“But I knew that the crowd was going to carry me in and that’s exactly what happened.
“I saw the red light on the block and then that was it.”
UNEXPECTED
Incredibly, Wiffen admitted that this was not the event he had expected to strike gold in.
On Saturday he competes in the 1500m heats, with the final the following day, and he also plans to compete in the 10km open water swim.
He said: “This is going to sound really weird but I’ve dreamed of this moment so many times in my head, I’ve gone over so many different ways about how it was going to happen.
“In my eyes, I didn’t really think I was going to do it in the 800m because it’s not my favourite event.
“My favourite event is the longer distance stuff.
“The 800m is quite a new event in the Olympics but I’m an 800m Olympic champion, it feels great and exceeded my expectations.
“My goal is obviously to be back on the podium again.
“I’ll get the recovery in and I will enjoy myself.
“I will try to treat myself to whatever they have in the Village.
“I don’t know what they have, and in the 1500m, get through the heats and see what happens.”