LOCAL swimmers are in action this weekend, hoping to secure qualifying times for the National Youth Championships in August.

Twenty swimmers from Swindon Dolphin will be travelling to Sheffield, the city that will host this summer’s Championships, while another Swindon club, Tigersharks, are in action at the City of Bristol level one open meet.

Dolphin head coach Louise Clayton already has four swimmers with a qualifying time and is hoping to add to the club’s representatives with strong performances in Yorkshire.

“The current training cycle is geared towards the Regional Championships in May,” she said. “So the swimmers will be swimming through. The training sessions will not taper off yet.

“The swimmers are tough anyway, they’re used to racing tough so they’ll swim as though they were fully tapered. Mentally they're prepared.”

Though Tigersharks are yet to clock a qualifying time, their head coach Lesley Leffers believes she may be looking for hotels in Sheffield by the end of the weekend, despite a disappointing injury picked up by one hopeful.

“Unfortunately one of my biggest hopefuls has injured herself on Saturday,” she said. “Rebecca Cook picked up a hip injury so that’s one down the drain, but I would still hope that Shaun Purvis, Bethany Wakefield and also Oliver Howitt can make it.

“You never can tell, it depends on the day and if everything comes together.”

Leffers also has a younger squad of eight swimmers, the eldest member aged 12, travelling to Millfield with a target of qualifying for next month’s regional championships, held in Plymouth.

Tigersharks have a large contingent of qualifiers for that event this season, 37 are already set to swim in Devon over the May bank holiday weekend and Leffers hopes that the young squad can learn from their trip to the Midlands.

All three parties will be competing in long-course (50 metre) pools, an opportunity not often afforded to local swimmers.

Though the town has a rich swimming community and many well-maintained swimming facilities, Swindon doesn’t have a full 50m long-course pool required for national and regional qualifying times to stand.

Clayton suggests that training in one of Swindon’s oldest pools, with uncommon dimensions, has its merits.

“I think training at Milton Road (33.3m), helps for 50m racing,” she said. “Although it’s only been over short-course (25m), racing in the last couple of weeks has helped both in terms of skills and confidence, because they’ve done so well.

“They’re full of confidence they’ve backed that up with some great training, some great times in training that we’ve done. So the team as a whole is buzzing.”

There are three more opportunities to qualify for the nationals after this meet, while the club’s other national qualifier, freestyle sprinter James Clark, will not travel with Dolphin this weekend as he gears up for the Commonwealth Games trials in Glasgow next weekend.