THREE Olympic hockey hopefuls have become flatmates in High Wycombe as their training programme ahead of London 2012 gets underway.

The men’s and women’s teams have started their training at Great Britain Hockey’s HQ at Bisham Abbey, with the Games now less than 500 days away.

And High Wycombe is the perfect base for team-mates Kerry Williams, Gemma Darrington and Alex Danson, with the new purpose-built Bisham pitch just down the road.

Defender Darrington, 23, said: “When we started the training programme we weren’t sure how it was going to work out. I decided to lodge and thought it would make sense to go in with other members of the team.”

Her Leicester team-mate Williams, 24, said: “We’ve got family who live in London and there’s easy access to training living here.

“It helps that the England Hockey Association is based here. It’s like the whole family is here – if there are any problems we’ve got people in the office we can speak to. It makes everything a lot easier.”

They said the flat share with Danson had been going well – despite the 25-year-old forward playing for arch-rivals Reading.

Williams said: “It helps that we don’t play in the same position so there’s no competition. That would be more intense but we can be more objective about things.”

The Great Britain team have their eyes set on a medal place, having made great strides in the last year by picking up three bronze medals.

Third place at the World Cup in Argentina was the team’s first-ever medal success at world level and it followed hot on the heels of bronze medals at the Commonwealth Games and the Champion’s Trophy in Nottingham.

Williams, who plays in attack, said: “We were ranked nine in the world so to get bronze medals is a massive leap. We beat some good teams along the way – we hadn’t beaten Argentina since 1990 and we took the Dutch to penalty strokes. They were the world number ones.

“People are frightened to play us, which is something we’ve never had before.”

Darrington added having the support of the home crowd in London could swing things in Great Britain’s favour.

She said: “We are hoping that’s going to help. We’re aiming for podium level.

“Everyone seems really excited. Hopefully we can put on a show for people and get a medal. We’re aiming for gold.”

Joining them in the team is Chloe Rogers, also from High Wycombe.

- To apply for London 2012 tickets go to www.tickets.london2012.com any time up until April 26.