MORE than 400 swimmers from 12 clubs are still waiting for their results after a computer meltdown threw the two-day Dorset Development Meet into chaos.

Dorset ASA secretary Di Gibbs is having to manually input around 900 entries and times after what she described as “data corruption on a surreal level”.

The problems began on day one, when the computer inexplicably added extra heats to the boys’ 400m freestyle and mixed female entries in with them, even though the girls were not due to swim in the event until the following day.

“Events then magically renumbered themselves, effectively removing the Saturday ‘skins’ session,” said Gibbs. “The following day this spiralled out of control. The set-up and statistics reports rewrote themselves as the weekend progressed.

“The icing on the cake was when all entries for Sunday’s 15 events were mysteriously moved into the day’s first two events.

“So I had 69 heats of girls’ 400m freestyle and 55 heats of boys’ 50m freestyle with entry times from all 15 events.”

One girl appeared in the 400m five times but with five different entry times.

“No matter what we did, we couldn’t get them back to where they should have been,” said Gibbs. “It was data corruption on a surreal level. We had no choice but to give up – no results, no medals, no awards.

“Fortunately, the electronic timing worked well so the swimming continued regardless and we do have the electronic results for all swims. I now have to re-enter all 900 entries for Sunday, then manually enter the results for each.”

Swimmers entering the meet are limited to events for which they do not have regional consideration times and did not place in the first three at the Dorset Championships. Those with national qualifying times are excluded.

Nine Swim Bournemouth swimmers will heading north over the next few weeks after making it to national championships.

Savannah Barman will be the busiest after qualifying for the 5km event at the ASA Open Water Championships at Rother Valley Country Park on July 23 as well as the English Summer Championships in early August.

She will swim the 17-18yrs 400m freestyle and 200m butterfly in Sheffield’s Ponds Forge pool.

Oli Fairman expects to be the youngest in the 15yrs 100 and 200m backstroke and 400m individual medley as a result of his December 30 birthday.

Twelve-year-old Amy Brown will also be against older swimmers after qualifying for the 12-13yrs 50m backstroke.

Also at the English nationals will be Henry Stanbrook in the 17yrs 50m and 100m backstroke, Morgan Long in the 16yrs 50m freestyle, Abby Manns in the 15yrs 100m and 200m breaststroke and Kelvin Wong in the 16yrs 50m breaststroke.

Rebecca Cummings and Toby Kitchener will join Barman at the open water event in the 17yrs 5km and 15yrs 3km, respectively.