Paris 2024: Wiffen 'feeling good' ahead of gruelling 10km race

Double Irish Olympic medallist Daniel Wiffen is "feeling good" ahead of the gruelling 10km swim on Friday, despite concerns over water quality in the River Seine.

Wiffen is set to become the only member of Team Ireland to compete in the famed French river, which until these Games had been off-limit to swimmers for a century due to poor water quality.

Organisers received some welcome news today when tests indicated the water quality was good enough for the women's 10km race to go ahead, where Dutch swimmer Sharon van Rouwendaal replicated her 2016 exploits by taking gold in a 2:03.34, five and a half seconds clear of Australia’s Moesha Johnson in second.

Wiffen, fresh from gold and bronze exploits in the 800m and 1500m freestyle respectively, will swap the La Defense Arena for the Seine.

On Wednesday, along with dozens of other marathon swimmers, the Armagh man tested the conditions in the river during a two-hour swim session.

It was his only opportunity to familiarise himself with the course, after the previous day’s session was cancelled due to unsafe pollution levels.

"He was anticipating maybe the water tasting strange, because so much has been said about it, but he was fine," Swim Ireland’s High Performance Director Jon Rudd told RTÉ News.

"The water quality readings at the moment are pretty good as long as we don't get heavy rain between now and Friday morning. It will only get better."

Cleaning up the long-polluted Seine is one of the key objectives of the Olympics for French authorities. More than €1.4 billion has been invested in wastewater infrastructure in recent years.

However, even with those efforts, water quality has been a constant concern throughout the Games. Last week, training sessions for the swim leg of the