As a result of their performances at last week's Great Britain national short course championships

at Norwich, three local swimmers, two from Newcastle and one from Richmond, have qualified for selection to the British team for the European short course championship at Antwerp, Belgium, on December 13-16.

Newcastle's Sarah Whewell won two senior women's titles, 100m and 200m individual medley and was third in 50m freestyle, which means she will also probably be in the freestyle relay team. Club mate Darren Wigg was second in the men's 400m individual medley won by York's Robin Francis (Bath Univ) and he was also sixth in the 200m breaststroke, butterfly and individual medley.

The trio is completed by Richmond's Olympian Nicola Jackson (Durham Aquatics) who immediately on her return from her successful World and Australian championships, was narrowly beaten by Georgina Lee (Birmingham) who got back the British record which Nicola had taken from her in Australia. She was also third in the 100m butterfly and freestyle.

During the championships a special time trial was held in which the British team attempted to beat its own World 4x200m freestyle record. Amid great excitement they lowered it by nearly two seconds with Nicola clocking the fastest leg, as she did in the team which set the previous record at the World championships in Athens last year.

There were a number of other excellent performances by North-East competitors at Norwich, including Andrew Thirlwell (Newcastle) who won three junior men's titles, 100m backstroke, freestyle and individual medley. In the latter he broke the British junior men's record. He was also third in the junior 200m individual medley.

Durham Aquatics' Chris Wilson won the junior titles in the men's 100m and 200m breaststroke. Tara Johnson got silver in the junior women's 800m freestyle and bronze in the 200m and 400m and fellow club member Stephanie Proud is the new junior women's 100m and 200m backstroke champion and was second in the 50m. Although still only 12, her time in the 200m were new Northumberland and Durham Counties junior and senior women's open records. Danielle Berry (Newcastle) was third in the junior women's 200m butterfly and Caroline Saxby (Durham Aquatics) was fourth in the 800m freestyle and along with Stephanie, Tara and Nicola were fourth in the 4x200m freestyle relay.

Julie Fort (Newcastle) was fourth in the women's 100m backstroke and 400m individual medley and club mate Chris Cook was third in the men's 200m breaststroke, fourth in the 50m and fifth in the 100m. He left yesterday with the small 11-strong British team for the World Student Games in Beijing, China, which start on Wednesday. Chris has his first race on Thursday.