Game of Thrones Actor Olympian Breaks Olympic Record
What happened in that sequence was so unexpected that the ‘Red Wedding’ episode of the Game of Thrones series has become an epitome, even an adjective, to describe betrayal or barbarism.
Just ask Irish swimmer Daniel Wiffen, who was there in 2013 while it was being filmed. The HBO series, based on George RR Martin’s books, brought the fantasy genre to prominence with unforgettable characters and protagonists who you grew to love with a certain fear because, at any moment, they would have their throats slit—him and his entire family, as happened in the legendary episode that stunned the millions of viewers who followed the series around the world.
In the episode, the Starks (who carried the narrative weight of the choral series) are betrayed by Lord Walder Frey during the wedding of the firstborn of the Starks. And while they talked about love, Frey’s acolytes passed the protagonists through the knife as if spreading butter. All the characters succumbed to a liquid death, and there he was, in the background of the frame, watching the narrative barbarity of the Olympic champion, who yesterday won the gold medal in the 800 m freestyle event and broke the Olympic record.
In 2013, when the episode was filmed, he was twelve years old. He knew nothing about Game of Thrones because his parents wouldn’t let him watch it. “My parents didn’t let me watch the series, but I think my father watched it all the time. But everything changed when his sister got a good role in Game of Thrones: she was one of the granddaughters of the hated Frey (she played Neyela Frey),” he tells the Olympics.
That day, “she did her bit, and then we went in for the red wedding, in the background. It was great.” Now, Wiffen has made sporting history: he is the first Irish male swimmer to stand on an Olympic podium, and he did so by breaking a new Olympic record in the La Defense pool in Paris with a time of 7.38.19.
American Bobby Finke (silver) and Italian Gregorio Paltrinieri (bronze) could do little against the Irishman’s sustained and unrepentant speed because, while the rest of the swimmers were falling behind, in the last laps, the reason for his gold in this endurance test was revealed: Wiffen was not a swimmer, but rather a tough, imperturbable transatlantic. When he climbed onto the podium, the only thing he showed was a certain weakness. The Irish anthem began to play. Even the best actor could have hidden the tears that fell from his eyes, no matter how much he put on his glasses.
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