National Swimming Championships over the weekend.

And now 13 Island swimmers have their sights on more glory when they cast off for Cuba and the Caribbean and Central American Age Group Championships in two weeks' time.

The three-day national championships, which wrapped up on Sunday evening at BASA Pool, were the last chance to qualify for the CCAN meet and two more swimmers were added to the mix when the selection committee sat down to choose the team.

As a result, an experienced, versatile squad will take on the top swimmers from more than 20 others nations at the July 6-12 competition. The Bermuda team actually leave on July 2 for a four-day training session in Fort Lauderdale before heading to the Bahamas and a connecting flight to Havana.

Two swimmers who won't be on the team are Canadian Owen von Richter and Floridian Kearns Paige, both of whom broke allcomers records over the weekend.

They were two of eight overseas swimmers invited to provide much-needed competition for the Bermudians.

Von Richter, a veteran of the Canadian national team, became the first swimmer to break four minutes for the 400-metre freestyle in Island waters and then shattered the 400m individual medley mark.

He raced to a time of three minutes, 58.4 seconds in the 400m freestyle and was clocked in 4:23:16 for the 400m IM, breaking by more than 15 seconds the previous mark set by David Valdes of Brevard, Florida, in 1993.

Paige, only 14, broke the six-year-old mark in the girls 100m freestyle with a time of 59:54. She also equalled the allcomers record in the girls 200m freestyle and was arguably the star of the meet, winning all six of her races.

Bermuda swimmers set three age group records but only one by a different person. Stephen Troake bettered his own record in the boys 15-16 year-old 200m backstroke by a full second when he clocked a time of 2:15:72, and Jessica Sousa broke her own 13-14 girls 50m butterfly standard with a time of 32:69.

The new mark belongs to Melanie Fullerton, who broke the 400m freestyle record for 9-10 year-old girls. Her time of 5:54:88 eclipsed the 5:55:11 set five years ago by Elisha Miller.

Troake is the only of the three named to the CCAN team, joining Matthew Hammond, Ronald Cowen and Trevor Nelson in the 15-17 year-old boys division.

Stephen Fahy, Trevor Ferguson, Alicia Mullan and Tamika Williams qualified in the 18-21 age group while Graham Smith, Paul Fox, Jimmy Pereira and Andrew Shaw will represent Bermuda in the boys 13-14 age group.

Shaw did not meet the qualifying standard set by BASA but was so close in the 100m freestyle that he was added to the team to give Bermuda a relay entry in the 13-14 boys division.

Relays not only add up to extra points in the team competition, they provides two extra races for Smith, Fox and Pereira, team manager Colleen Nelson said.

Jessica Marwick became just the third female to qualify when she cracked the standard in the girls 13-14 100m breaststroke.

At the previous CCAN championships, two years ago in Guadeloupe, Bermuda only sent ten swimmers -- and eight of them will be diving into Pan American Games pool in Havana this year.

MILLER TIME -- Elisha Miller took part in the three-day National Swimming Championships at BASA Pool on the weekend, finishing third in both the 200 and 50 metres freestyle.