Twenty one swimmers qualified for individual or relay events from last week's British Championships for the Word Championships which are to be held in Fukuoka, Japan, at the end of July with several top names still to gain the required standard.

Surprisingly both Stephen Parry the Olympic finalist and James Hickman the world short course champion, missed out in the 200m butterfly. Although Mark Foster qualified for the 50m butterfly he missed out on the 50m freestyle the event in which he finished seventh at the Sydney games. There are three more chance, all in June for swimmers to achieve their target times.

Four other swimmers, Graeme Smith (800m freestyle), Darren Mew (50m Breaststroke), Katy sexton (Portsmouth Northsea) and Nathalie Brown (1500m freestyle) achieved the qualification times but one stage one of the selections only the winner who achieved the time was chosen. The second and final round of selections comes at the end of June and will be made from the British rankings of those who have made the times.

On the final day of competition James Gibson set three British and Commonwealth records in as many swims. The twenty one year old economics and political student who is in his final year at Loughborough University, missed out on an Olympic place. But watching the games from his home in Essex made him determined to be in Athens in 2004.

With introduction of the 50m breaststroke at the World Championships he hopes to make amends by winning a place on the victors rostrum. His swim in the final of 27.79 puts him fourth on the world rankings so far this year.

But his preparation for the trials was far from ideal. The last three or four weeks he has been up till the early hours in the morning writing his dissertation. Now he has to write a seven thousand word essay before taking his finals in June. When asked how he coped with all this he admitted "it's mental relaxation" adding "I love my swimming".

One who so nearly hung up her costume after Sydney was Jaime King. But she's glad she didn't as she collected her second national title and British record when adding the 100m breast-stroke to the 200m.

Unfortunately like her time in the 200m she missed the qualifying time for the World Championships. But this time the twenty four year old veteran of three Olympics, was just 0.12sec away. Her time of 1min 09.64sec shaved 0.28sec off the time established last year by Heidi Earp. But she will be in Japan as the medley relay qualified.

There were double victories for Simon Militis (200m backstroke and 400m medley) and Rosalind Brett (100m freestyle and 50m butterfly) but no qualifying times although Brett does win her place on the team as a member of both the 4 x 100m freestyle and medley relays.

Rebecca Cooke ended her busy week with victory in the 400m freestyle to complete a hat trick of freestyle victories. But unlike her two previous wins this was not a qualifying time.