While most of Reading Swimming Club's top performers were in Slovenia for a week's hard work under head coach Graeme Thomas and his assistant David Wittig leading up to the Easter Open, two who joined the club recently were in action at Britain's top pool.

Zoe Hester and Chris Ferguson, who joined Thomas's squad from Basingstoke on the recommendation of British Swimming regional youth supremo Mick Hepwood, swam their first competition as Reading members at the British long-course championships at Sheffield's Ponds Forge.

The meet brought together many of the stars of the Melbourne Commonwealth Games and the cream of Britain's young prospects born in 1990 and 1991.

Backstroke specialist Hester, 14, starred in both the 200m and 100m events. Already at the top of the national rankings for her year group thanks to a time of 2.21.53 at the Swim Wales January meet, Hester obliterated this by an extraordinary five seconds in her heat, recording 2.16.13.

This put her ahead of top Loughborough pair Stephanie Proud and Karen Lee, and only narrowly adrift of Lincoln's Lizzie Simmonds, who is already being talked of as a potential major star at 2012 London Olympics.

Hester was back in the pool the same evening for the semi-final, and swam another PB of 2.15.64 to qualify for the final third quickest. There she narrowly missed a medal, placing fifth in 2.15.84 with only half a second covering places three to five.

It was a similar story over 100 metres. A quarter-second PB put Hester into the semi-final fourth-fastest in 1.04.94 A further PB of 1.04.63 there saw her fifth-quickest into the final where she again placed fifth, swimming 1.04.88.

Ferguson, meanwhile, opened his account with a 54.13 100m freestyle – improving a PB of 54.74 which saw him enter the meet already second in his year's national rankings. He also chopped his pre-meet best in the 200, swimming 1.58.04 from an entry time of 1.59.74, and the 50 where he entered on 25.90 and cut this to 25.14.