Roy-Allan Burch and Kiera Aitken both impressed on opposite sides of the Atlantic while Julian Fletcher and Lisa Blackburn made further inroads towards Olympic qualification at the weekend.Competing at the Acropolis Grand Prix in Greece, Olympic hopeful Aitken placed third in the women’s 100 metre backstroke (1:04.50), fourth in the 50 metre breaststroke (30.59) and seventh in the 50 metre freestyle (27.37).Yet despite managing a podium display in the 100 metre backstroke, Aitken was disappointed with her overall showing in Greece.“I was disappointed with my results from the weekend,” she lamented. “I had a lot of trouble with my backstroke start at this pool which had a big effect on my confidence going into the races and my times were not near where I expected them to be at this meet.”Aitkin is bidding to qualify for the upcoming Olympic Games in the 100 metre backstroke. Her time over the distance in Greece was more than two seconds slower than the qualifying mark of 1:02.95.“I have a couple more opportunities to qualify for the Olympics,” she added. “I will be doing two of the meets on the Mare Nostrum Tour.“The first is in Barcelona June 2-3 and then in Monte Carlo the week after that.”Burch, who has already qualified for the London Games, impressed at the Charlotte Grand Prix in Charlotte, North Carolina.He finished seventh in a strong field of US Olympic hopefuls in the 50 metre freestyle ‘A’ final with a time of 23.10 which was slower than the 23.08 he achieved en route to the final.“Roy swam well among the favourites to represent the US at the Olympics in the outside lane,” said national coach Ben Smith. “But with that much splash from several of the fastest swimmers in the world the waves were big.“He feels good about his swim and on the level that he is with another’ A’ final on his resume. All the focus is headed to London. Each swim before then are dress rehearsals and he is simply fine tuning his event.“There are still tweaks to be made and his Carolina coaches have been talking details that will be worked on over the next few weeks.”Burch also competed in the 100 metre freestyle but failed to reach the finals.Fletcher and Blackburn also impressed competing in their respective disciplines in Charlotte.Fletcher placed 14th overall in the 100 meter breaststroke with a time of 1:04.13 in the ‘B’ final. He also swam a personal best 2:23.72 in the men’s 200 metre breaststroke to finish 24th overall.Fletcher’s time in the 200 metre breaststroke was a mere second shy of Chris Flooks’ national record set in 1993.Blackburn finished eighth in the women’s 100 metre breaststroke with a time of 1:13.18 in the ‘A’ final and 34th in the 200 metre breaststroke with a time of 2:40.20.The trio of Burch, Fletcher and Blackburn are due to travel to California later this month to compete at the Santa Clara Grand Prix, the latter two swimmers in the hopes of securing Olympic qualification.“This has been a successful weekend and we hope to have some smiles after California in a couple of weeks,” Smith said.Among the star swimmers at last weekend’s Charlotte Grand Prix was multiple Olympic gold medallists Micheal Phelps who was upstaged by Wu Peng in the men’s 200 metre butterfly final.