TWO young members of Okehampton Otters Lifesaving Club recently competed at the Royal Life Saving Society's National Speed Championships at the London Aquatic Centre at the Olympic Park.

Lachie Mills and Ben Bowles have been members of Otters for four years but have only recently started competing in life saving speed events, so to race in the national finals is really in at the deep end!

The event attracted over 600 swimmers from as far afield as Scotland, Ireland and the Channel Islands and ran for the whole weekend of March 7 and 8.

Lachie and Ben competed in seven events including manikin towing, rope throws and obstacle swims. They finished around mid table for all of their races which was a good result for their first big competition.

As a bonus they both met with Mark Foster, a world and commonwealth champion swimmer.

The boys train on Friday evenings from 6pm to 7pm at Parklands pool with Okehampton Otters and are hoping to enter more county and regional events this year — and hopefully back to the nationals in 2016.

Anyone interested in learning Life Saving skills is welcome to go along on the Friday evenings to Parklands Leisure Centre and join in.

There is a rookies section for children aged between eight and eleven and survive and save training for those aged 12 or above.

Further information is available on the Okehampton Otters web- site which is http://www.okehamptonswimmingclub.co.uk">www.okehamptonswimmingclub.co.uk