Danielle Whiffen: The Olympic gold medalist is open to changing his training base after the Irish Open

Whiffen said he expects to “swim the best ever so I don’t have to decide” which 200m, 400m, 800m and 1,500m races he will compete in, despite his lack of competitive activity recently.

He set his goals as swimming the 400 meters in about 4.33 seconds, the 800 meters in under 7.42 seconds, and the 1,500 meters in under 14.40 seconds to assess whether his time in California was a success.

The County Armagh man has also pointed to Dublin as a potential future base if he decides to move, but stressed that doing so would depend heavily on his performance in Bangor.

“If at those times, you’re under or near the PB, that’s great. Obviously that means the training is working, and if it’s not working, then I [have to figure out] What will I do next, he added.

“I’m thinking about going back to Dublin if things don’t go well, but we’ll have to see. If I swam out of the lights in Bangor, obviously my decisions wouldn’t have been made.”

Whiffen also explained the main differences he encountered between training in England and the United States, where they use yardage instead of metres.

“Training is completely different, and even though I don’t swim much, I think it’s fun being in America. There are a lot of distractions, and it’s a good lifestyle, but it’s not like what Loughborough used to be,” he said.

“[It was] It’s all about the mossy weather, very similar to the weather in Ireland and I love swimming in the rain and when the weather is dull. When you are in the sun, everything becomes more difficult and motivation becomes much harder.

“When I swim in California, my motivation is that I’m with a really good training group and everyone is pushing each other, like in Loughborough, I feel like it was more self-motivation, I got there because I wanted to win.

“I wanted to do all those things where I feel like another group is pushing me to swim fast, which I love, but I think I want to get a little bit of self-motivation back, so we’ll have to see how next week goes.”