Some time before swimming starts at the European Aquatics Championships Paris 2026, Rachel and Jonathan Wiffen will seek out a church close to the competition venue and light a candle for their son Daniel.

It is a pre-race ritual they have observed in the past with glowing results – not least in the same city two years ago when their boy won Olympic 800m freestyle gold and 1500m freestyle bronze.

Strange to relate, Ireland’s 24-year-old distance swimmer extraordinaire – who was brought up within the Catholic faith – has yet to win a European Aquatics Championships long-course medal.

But this summer he is set on changing that in the French capital – and he couldn’t be happier about the location.

“Paris is my favourite city in the world,” Wiffen told European Aquatics. “I’ve always wanted to live there. I’m even taking French lessons because I enjoy the language so much.

“So when the Olympics were being held in Paris it was as if everything was aligning. Because the Games were being held in my favourite place and now we have the European Championships there.

“I’ve only ever been to one long course European Championships before and that was in 2021 before the Tokyo Olympics, and I came 11th. I haven’t been back in the Championships since because it was always clashing with something like the Commonwealth Games or some other competition.

“But this year I’ve decided to double in both the Commonwealths and the Europeans because I need to win both of them to complete the competitions that I can win in my career.

“For me the Commonwealths are important because it’s my only opportunity to race for Northern Ireland, which is where I grew up and learned to swim. So that’s important as I get to bring something back for the place that basically taught me everything.

“But obviously I’m Irish and I race for Ireland so the Europeans will be more my target.

“Going back to Paris is obviously special because that’s where I won the Olympic gold and it’s going to be the first time where I can win a European gold too.”

Wiffen’s medal collection is already formidable. His first at international level, a silver in the 1500m freestyle, came at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games a year after he had taken part in the delayed Tokyo Games as a 20-year-old.

The following year he won gold, silver and bronze at the inaugural European Aquatics U23 Championships in Dublin and added 400m, 800m (in a world record) and 1500m freestyle gold at the EA Short Course Championships in Otopeni.

Wiffen began 2024 by winning world 800m and 1500m titles in Doha before moving on to his Paris triumph.

Last year his hopes of defending those world titles in Singapore were undermined by a troublesome appendix that required surgery. But with minimal preparation he ended 2025 on a high as he claimed gold, silver and bronze in December’s EA Short Course Championships in Lublin.

“I would say 2025 was a mix of emotions for me,” he reflected. “I was coming into the World Championships with a great level of fitness but about five weeks before I had to go to hospital because my appendix was grumbling.

“They offered to get it out then, which would have meant missing out on the World Championships, or to take the antibiotics and be able to compete. Obviously I wanted to be in Singapore because I had trained so hard for it.

“But when I did the 400 I knew something was wrong. I then did the 800 heats and I could hardly put a stroke together. I made it into the final in eighth place, and then during that I felt as if I was going to die because of the pain I was in, and I had to medically withdraw from the competition. Otherwise I would have risked rupturing my appendix.

“I had to wait until September for the operation because I had to wait for it to calm down before surgery. So I think I got back into proper training just a month before the European Short Course Championships.

“In Lublin I was just hoping to make the podium – but I came away with three medals. At the Otopeni edition of those Championships in 2023 I broke the world record and won three golds.

“But getting gold at Lublin in the 1500m was one of the defining moments of my career. Because it came from the adversity of having that appendix taken out and then having to train as hard as possible to get my fitness just enough so I could win at the European Championships.”

For Wiffen, as for many other top European athletes, this summer’s Championships will be a significant marker en route to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

“It’s the halfway marker isn’t it?” he said. “When you are two years out from an Olympics you are looking to be pretty much on your best times or if not just over them.

“Everybody has a rough idea of what it’s going to take, timewise, to win at the Olympics in 2028, so you just try to replicate as many of those races as possible. So that when you come to LA you have that experience and you’re able to go out and win.

“In 2024 I didn’t lose a competition that season, and when I got to Paris it was obviously very easy. So looking ahead to LA, the more times I can win the more times I can put myself in that situation. “Then it becomes a lot easier when we get to LA to be on the top podium again.

“And they do say it’s a lot easier to defend your Olympic title than it is to win your first!”

On that subject, Wiffen added; “If I had to describe the feeling I would say it was relief. Everybody thinks winning these gold medals is glamorous, but people don’t realise the work that goes into it. From the Tokyo Olympics to the Paris Olympics you put in three years of just grinding it out every day.

“You can’t leave anything behind you. It has to be 100 per cent effort. And it’s a lot of pressure. I was going out knowing I was going to win because I had so much confidence in the work I’d done in training which meant no one was going to beat me.

“I had so much confidence going into the Games. So I don’t remember feeling so much pressure. But when I touched the wall it just felt like this weight lifted off my shoulders. And then I could finally celebrate.”

Meanwhile Wiffen – whose twin brother Nathan will represent Ireland in open water swimming at the Championships – is savouring the imminent trip to his city of delight.

“I was five when I went to Paris for the first time, and I’ve probably been 12 times, maybe more,” he recalled. “I think I’ve seen all the sights of Paris over the years. I love everything – the Eiffel Tower, the catacombs, the Louvre.

“During the Olympics I couldn’t really see anything because I was doing the whole programme and I was in the Village for three weeks. But I went back for New Year’s Eve so I could finish off 2024 in Paris for the countdown, and I was there with my gold medal.”

Top of his wish-list this summer will be a trip to the Sacré Coeur Basilica in Montmartre, where he plans to visit the iconic sets of stairs where the spectacular action finale of the John Wick: Chapter 4 movie, starring Keanu Reeves, was filmed. Before that, however, he is set on taking a step up to the top of another podium…

Mike Rowbottom for European Aquatics