Youth Games prove a big success
The Tees Valley Partnership Youth Games were held at Middlesbrough Unity City Academy and Southlands Centre on Saturday April 2nd and proved a huge success attracting over 300 young people. The Games target young people aged 16-19 and are specifically aimed at recruiting new participants into sports and those who might have stopped playing sport after leaving school.
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The Games is one of the showcase events of the Tees Valley London 2012 Legacy Action Plan and has received the prestigious Inspire Mark through the London 2012 Organising Committee (LOCOG).
Middlesbrough boxer Louis Cunningham provided an inspirational speech at the opening ceremony. Louis is a member of the Wellington Amateur Boxing Club in Middlesbrough and is current British University Middleweight champion. Cllr Brenda Thompson, Middlesbrough Borough Council Executive Member of Public Health and Sport formally opened the Games.
The young people took part in five sports on the day including, netball, rugby union, dance, basketball, and disability football. The Games were an exciting culmination to a busy programme of training and competition arranged through Middlesbrough, Hartlepool, Stockton, Redcar and Cleveland and Darlington sports development teams.
A number of inclusive competitions were also held on the day contributing to the development of disabled young people in sport. The football and netball disability competitions were extremely competitive and a number of players were signposted into talent academies following particularly impressive performances.
The dance competition proved one of the highlights of the day with a spectacular "dance off" taking place at the end of the Games to a large and appreciative audience. The basketball provided a thrilling event with a very high standard of play with the final competition winners settled in the final round of matches. Rugby union was held at the games for the first time and the mixed tag competition proved a big success.
Middlesbrough were the overall Games winners after a day of tough competition, closely followed by Darlington and Hartlepool who shared the runners-up trophy.
Individual Team winners for each sport were;
|
Sport |
Winners |
Runners Up |
|
Disability football |
Middlesbrough |
Redcar & Cleveland |
|
Basketball (Male) |
Darlington |
Redcar & Cleveland |
|
Basketball (Female) |
Middlesbrough |
Hartlepool |
|
Dance |
Middlesbrough |
Darlington |
|
Netball (Disability) |
Hartlepool |
Stockton |
|
Netball (Female) |
Hartlepool |
Stockton |
|
Rugby Union |
Darlington |
Stockton |
Overall winners
- Team Middlesbrough
- Joint runners up- Hartlepool and Darlington
Jean Lordon, Executive Director of Tees Valley Sport said "The Games were a great success with a very high standard of competition played in a tremendous spirit by all the young people involved. The Games could not take place without the help of local authority sports development teams, school and college sports coordinators, coaches, team managers and officials. It was fantastic to see so many of our partners working together to deliver such a great competition".
