MORE than 10,000 young sports people took part in the finals of this year's London Heathrow Youth Games at Crystal Palace National Sports Centre this weekend.

Of the 33 London boroughs, Greenwich finished in 13th place and Lewisham 28th.

Although the Greenwich team dropped three places on last year's performance, the council's lead sports development officer Steve Johnston had only praise for the competitors.

The team not only claimed the Best Inner London Borough Award for the second year in a row, but a special Best Effort trophy for the female footballers, who finished eighth.

"We had a really good performance generally and the angling team won gold overall," he said.

Fishermen Andy Scrivener, 11, Richard Coleman, 15, and Mark Delieu, 16, from Thamesemead beat Richmond-upon-Thames and Redbridge into second and third places respectively to claim Greenwich's only team gold medal of the weekend.

In the individual athletics events, 16-year-old Alex Hall from Charlton, took first place in the long jump and Eltham's Bobby Wood claimed bronze in the shot putt.

The U19 cycling team performed well, finishing behind Bromley and Croydon. Peter Keil, Steven Hodges, Morris Pamplin and Nicholas Thompson joined neighbours Bexley in third place.

Another excellent team performance brought the silver medal to the squash team of Anthony Gumbrell, Lewis Ryall, Ian McMeckan and Sian Berry. They were defeated by Waltham Forest but pipped Barnet into third.

The female karate team won bronze overall, with fine individual efforts from Lauren Johnson and Alex Smith. Lauren took second place in both the kata (set moves) and kumite (fighting events), while 16-year-old Alex won bronze in the kumite.

In the swimming pool, there was an individual gold medal for Joseph Greenaway on his competitive debut. The 14-year-old from Plumstead took first place in the 50m disabled freestyle event.

Johnston said all the effort had been worthwhile. "We'd like to thank all the team managers in the individual sports for all their efforts," he said.

While Lewisham were not quite as successful as their neighbours, there were still some impressive results particularly in the basketball events.

The female team beat Kensington and Chelsea into second place, while the male team finished joint third with Merton, behind Haringey and Ealing.

Lewisham also showed its strength in the weightlifting arena with a creditable third place.

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