The British Championships concluded in now customary style with a battle royale over 200m freestyle. It brought 6 days of competition in Sheffield to a rousing finish, as the final selection opportunities for Budapest and Birmingham came and went. With selectors’ deliberations still to come, here’s a look at how the selection picture stands for Britain and each of the home nation teams.

The British Championships is at least part of the selection process for Britain’s World Championship team and the Commonwealth Games teams for England, Wales and Scotland, as outlined in greater detail in our guides to each policy.

Below we have summarised the selection position after day 1 of competition. Please note this is only our interpretation of how each policy will be applied and final selections need to be confirmed by the relevant selectors in due course.

As ever, if you spot an error please get in touch.

CORRECTION: Takeover tolerances of 1.5s for relays had not been accounted for correctly for Wales, Scotland and England – this has been updated in the files linked below.

Britain

With events drawn to a close the team only grew slightly from the pre-selections in the final analysis. Indeed it was only Lewis Burras who added himself to the team for an individual event, while Anna Hopkin added to her relay pre-selection by booking an individual slot in the 100 freestyle. Jacob Whittle was the only relay name added, putting himself in the frame for the 4×100 freestyle team which made the grade

Beyond that quartet, the relay picture is clouded somewhat by the preselection – the policy states that the normal approach of adding up the times of the relevant top 4 finishers only applies t the teams that were not preselected. So for the 4×200 for example, Joe Litchfield will have to wait and see if he gets the nod as a discretionary pick, despite finishing in 4th place and the quartet making the grade on the clock. The mixed medley relay didn’t make the qualifying time during the week (although using pre-selected Kathleen Dawson’s 2021 performances gets them under the required standard) but the Olympic champion quartet are all selected anyway. The same applies to the the men’s medley relay, who fell short of the QT in Sheffield, but will all be in Budapest in any case.

With a maximum team size of 30 and only 16 spots taken, the selectors hence have plenty of scope for discretionary picks. What approach they take, against the backdrop of a busy summer of international competition, will be interesting to see.

England

In addition to the 10 pre-selections made from the Olympic team, a further 19 names were thrown into the hat in Sheffield, swelling the potential team to 29. That leaves the selectors a further 5 discretionary picks to make, and given it is a home games it would be a surprise if not all of those were filled. In particular with a full complement of relays the need to balance workloads could add several names to the mix.

Wales

Wales concluded proceedings with 5 men and 2 women plus both mixed relays inside the consideration standards set by Swim Wales. With no advised limit to the team size, it’s certain that the squad will grow given it’s effectively a home Commonwealth Games this year.

Scotland

With 16 spots to fill, the tally stands at 14 after the British Championships, with notably only the women’s 4×100 free and medley teams making the relay consideration times that had been set once the takeover allowance was introduced, and 2021 performances considered. The selectors have discretion to fill the team, with trials performances being only one of the criteria being used, and it would be a surprise if 16 names were not put forward once deliberations are concluded.

Banner Image – Georgie Kerr/British Swimming