SEVEN City of Hereford Club swimmers have qualified for the ASA National Champion-ships which start at Ponds Forge, Sheffield on Saturday.

Between them the Hereford swimmers achieved 24 very tight qualifying times for the championships.

There are two parts to the Nationals, Age Groups (boys 11-14 and girls 11-13), and Youth (boys 15-18, girls 14-17). The youth championships also uniquely incorporate the trials for the Commonwealth Games to be held in Melbourne, Australia, next February.

The following swimmers have qualified for the Age Group Championships:

Otto Putland: 100m, 200m & 400m freestyle, 100m & 200m backstroke, 100m & 200m butterfly, 200m & 400m individual medley (IM).

At 11, Otto is the youngest competitor from City of Hereford in the championships and will be hoping to continue his fine run of form this year since taking a clean sweep of gold medals in his 15 events at the Gloucester County Championships. This will be his first experience at this level of competition.

Tom Stokes: 200m backstroke, 200m & 400m individual medley.

Tom has been training with Hereford since October 2004 and qualified for two more events than last year.

Ashleigh Powell (sponsored by Ready, Steady Win): 100m backstroke & 100m butterfly.

Ashleigh is in his last year at the Age Group championships and will be hoping to be in top form as a sprint specialist. His explosive power was demonstrated when he took the junior county 50m backstroke title earlier in the year.

The following swimmers have qualified for the Youth Championships and Common-wealth Trials (BBC TV coverage of the finals sessions is on Sunday, August 7 and Tuesday, August 9):

Charlotte Tully: 400m individual medley.

Charlotte is in her first year at the youth championships and will be keen to finish the season, which saw her take the 200m butterfly junior and senior titles at the counties, on a high. This is the fourth consecutive year that she has met the required standard for the national championships.

Chris Bayliss: 100m & 200m breaststroke, 200m & 400m individual medley.

Chris has had an impressive run of form this year which saw him take four titles at the district championships. Chris will be competing against World Champion James Gibson and Commonwealth Champion Adam Whitehead.

Josh Haines: 100m & 200m Butterfly.

This will be the second major competition of the year for Josh, having swum the 100m flystroke at the British Senior Champion-ships in March.

Pat Meggitt: 1500m freestyle, 100m & 200m butterfly.

Pat has achieved a personal best in qualifying for three events this year in some very demanding events. In the 1500m he will be locking horns with Olympic bronze medallist David Davies.

Hereford coach Chris Treanor has high hopes for his swimmers.

"The main aim is to go there and achieve personal best swims. If these athletes do that it will put them into contention for mixing it with the big guys.

"They have the unique opportunity of a home Olympics to look forward to and this will be a great step towards achieving places on that team. Here at Hereford we have the potential to become one of the best teams in Britain."

Josh Darby and Lizzie Mason just missed out but would have qualified on last year's times for the 200m butterfly and 200m breaststroke respectively.

Any children interested in joining the club should turn up in swimming costume, poolside at 4.30 pm on Tuesday, September 6, at the Hereford Leisure Pool. They should be able to swim three lengths and assessments are free.