SEVEN members of the Amersham Swimming Dive Club will compete for national honours in May after winning their places at the regionals in Crawley recently.

Anna Croft led the way with a bronze and silver medal in the South East Skills competition at the K2 Centre, while LJ Ekendahl, Billy Houlihan-Burne, Katie Burton, Isabell Woodward, Elizabeth Cullen and Alannah Crockatt also won through to the national finals.

Burton will be aiming to improve on her fifth place finish last year, but for the other divers it will be a debut appearance.

Lead coach Robert Metcalfe said: “The club hasn’t really competed seriously in anything for the last 20 years.

“I came in last year to re-establish the club. We want to expand and we’re looking for local talent to help us do that.

“It’s a completely new way of doing things at the club.”

To back up the club’s ambitious plans, Metcalfe has introduced a training regime based on the Amateur Swimming Association’s Long Term Athlete Development strategy.

Dry land and conditioning sessions have also been introduced alongside regular visits to national centres of excellence.

On top of this, Metcalfe and team manager Katie Bell are introducing Learn to Dive sessions and plan to visit schools in the area for further talent-spotting days.

Metcalfe said: “It’s still early days but we’ve had some good successes. We’re going from strength to strength and if we keep building we should do very well.”