In what a club official has described as the “the fastest domestic meet ever”, City of Belfast swimmers produced an amazing 17 Ulster and Irish junior and senior records over the course of the four days at the National Aquatic Centre in Dublin.

The 50-metre medley women’s relay team won gold in a time of 2:03:12 minutes, breaking the senior record previously held by Cormorant and setting a new Ulster high in the process. They were second in the 200m medley.

Not to be outdone, the men’s relay team gained gold in the 200m freestyle with a new Ulster senior and Irish junior record and added a new Ulster and Irish junior record in the 50m freestyle in 3:34:77.

Several rising stars – Conor Leamy, Iain Chisholm and Conor Shevlin – were all in fantastic form and the club are hoping that some of that trio could come into contention for a place at the London Olympics.

Leamy set a new Irish junior record in the 200m freestyle with a top time of 1:53:34, an Ulster and Irish junior record in the 50m freestyle, and an Ulster junior record in the 100m butterfly.

He took gold in the 100-metre freestyle in a time of 51:40 seconds, which constituted not only a new Ulster senior record and an Irish junior record but also a European qualifying time.

Chisholm came second to Leamy in the 100m freestyle and has also been earmarked as a member of an elite group being groomed for London 2012 while Shevlin also broke three Ulster junior records – in the 50, 100 and 200-metre backcrawl events.

Although these Irish Long Course Championships doubled as an Olympic trial, no swimmers achieved the qualifying standard for the Beijing Games later this year.

There were high hopes for Nocher, Ulster’s best bet to claim a swimming spot in China outside of the already-qualified Andrew Bree whose appearance is in jeopardy after a failed drugs test.

But Nocher was two seconds off the required mark in the 200-metre backcrawl and beaten by new sensation from Dublin, Aishling Cooney.

Although she set new Ulster senior records in the 50m and 100m backcrawls, it was ultimately a disappointing meet for Nocher, who will now travel with the Irish squad to the Dutch National Championships in Eindhoven for one last qualification attempt.

City of Belfast head coach Peter Hill and senior coach Liz Reid were confident that their swimmers would break records at the gala but the results far surpassed even their expectations.

The club now has 11 swimmers in the Ulster squad, two European qualifiers and three on the elite list looking forward to the 2012 Olympics – an impressive array of talent.