SEAGULLS’ Harriet Perfect will be heading for her first national championships this summer just 18 months after taking up competitive swimming.

The 12-year-old completed a clean sweep of her age group’s backstroke gold medals at the high-class Portsmouth Easter Festival Meet.

Her winning long-course time of 2:29.45 in the 200m backstroke qualified her to swim that event in the age group nationals in July.

She missed a second qualifying time by just 0.15sec as she won the 100m backstroke in 1:10.41 – but she will get other opportunities to improve on that.

Perfect, who joined Seagulls 18 months ago after learning to swim at Ringwood’s David Lloyd Club, also won gold in the 50m backstroke in 33.69 and silver in the 200m individual medley in 2:38.03.

Team-mate Andrew Botros, 14, will join Perfect at Sheffield in July after qualifying for his fourth consecutive nationals, also in the 200m backstroke.

His time of 2:17.93 won him a silver medal at Portsmouth and he also took bronze in the 100m butterfly in 1:05.37.

Seagulls’ Zoe Gannaway won gold in the 12yrs 100m freestyle (1:04.70) and bronze in the 50 and 200m freestyle (30.67 and 2:20.98).

Rising talents Jacob O’Hara and Anashe Chisadza, both 10, and nine-year-old Nathan Gerrard also made it to the medal podium.

O’Hara won double gold in the 400m individual medley (6:29.43) and 200m breaststroke (3:26.13) and silver in the 200m medley (3:03.02), while Chisadza won a medal of each colour – gold in the 200m butterfly (3:10.87), silver and bronze in 400 and 200m individual medley (6:31.09 and 3:05.3).

Gerrard claimed silver behind O’Hara’s gold in the 200m breaststroke (3:37.25) and added a trio of bronze medals in the 50m breast (46.50), 50 butterfly (39.97) and 200m backstroke (3:00.46).

Jay Lelliott picked up in Portsmouth were he left off in the Dorset championships, winning nine of Swim Bournemouth’s 21 medals. His personal tally amounted to three gold, one silver and five bronze and his 50m back time of 27.8sec added to his stock of Dorset county records by almost a second.

Silver and bronze medallists Alan Wong and Jamie Gray also achieved backstroke times for the National Youth Championships in the 100 and 200m respectively.

Other Swim Bournemouth medalists were backstroker Ellie Kerslake (two silver), Ben Samuel (one silver, one bronze), Matt Collins (one silver, one bronze), Jordan Young (one bronze), Chris Parsons (one bronze), Kelvin Wong (one bronze) and Izzy Frampton (one bronze).