Daniel Wiffen into 1500m freestyle final at World Championships

Daniel Wiffen booked his his place in the 1500m freestyle final at the World Aquatics Championships in Doha on Saturday, while Mona McSharry progressed to the 50m breaststroke semi-finals.

On Thursday, Wiffen made history by winning 800m freestyle gold, becoming the first Irish swimmer to claim a medal at the World Championships.

This morning, he made his third final of the week by winning his heat in 14:54.29. Wiffen is the sixth seed for Sunday's final, just eight tenths of a second inside the top eight.

Speaking after the race, Wiffen, 22, said: "I’m good, I tried to take it as easy as possible and just pace it to get back. I’m in sixth position going in, I could have missed it by 0.8 there, so I’m pretty happy with that. I did what I wanted to do, it was fun for me."

The 1500m freestyle final will take place on at 4.16pm [Irish time].

After taking fifth in the 200m breaststroke final on Friday, McSharry was back on the blocks for the 50m breaststroke heats. The 23-year-old touched second in her heat in 30.72 and progresses to Saturday afternoon’s semi-final [4.25pm irish time] ranked seventh.

"I’m happy with that," she said. "That’s a good morning swim. I think there’s room to improve for sure, but coming off the 200m is never going to be easy so it’s a good starting point."

Erin Riordan closed out her championships in the 50m freestyle, her first individual race at world level. The National Centre Dublin swimmer clocked 26.26 to finish 46th overall.