Youth Games
The Youth Games is an annual event hosted by the County Sports Partnerships across the UK. Launched as the Millennium Games in 2000, the Youth Games allows children from across the County to come together and compete in a range of Sporting Activities, in a fun filled and exciting day.
Sunday 3rd June 2007 saw the eighth annual North Yorkshire Youth Games where just under 1,500 children from across North Yorkshire competed in one of the most important fixtures in the county’s sporting calendar.
Ampleforth College in Ryedale provided the backdrop to five and a half hours of back to back sporting competition, across 10 sporting disciplines, with children from all local authority areas scooping medals.
The Governing Body Officers and event staff voted Ryedale as the recipients of the 2007 Fair Play Trophy, which was awarded for their standard of behaviour, conduct and effort throughout the competition.
The journey to the games began six months ago for some of the children when the competition was open to all children in North Yorkshire – aged between 8 and 16 when thousands of them competed through their schools, Local Authorities and local sports clubs.
David Watson, Executive Director of North Yorkshire Sport said: “This year's event has proved hugely popular and even more successful than in previous years. The level of competition was high and the standard of play was outstanding. North Yorkshire boasts some great up and coming young sportspeople and, who knows, we may even produce the next Kelly Holmes or Henry Paul!”
David continued: “For many of the youngsters, this will have been their first taste of District competition and in some cases the first opportunity to represent their District, School or club. The ethos of the Games is to make sport and competition fun and accessible to as many people as possible and this year's event has undoubtedly fulfilled that.”
Leon Taylor, Olympic silver medallist in synchronised diving, also attended the event, encouraging and cheering the children who were participating. Leon was there in his capacity as a member of Team B&Q, a squad of athletes selected by B&Q as part of its partnership with the British Olympic Association to support Team GB through to the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
Leon was delighted to have been invited to Ampleforth College and said ‘It’s been a fabulous day – not only was the weather great but we’ve seen some fantastic performances today. The children have all made a huge effort to do their best and that’s what I like to see. I hope that I’ve been able to encourage some of them to take their sport to the next level and hopefully aim for Olympic medals of their own.”
The event was also supported by another sporting champion – Katie Crowley. She started basketball through a basketball programme, which was run at her school when she was 11 and she made her international debut in 2001.
She now plays for the Sheffield Hatters and has 36 England caps. Her best moment was making the team for the Senior Women’s European Championships and beating Ireland and also playing in the World Student games in Izmir, Turkey in 2005.
Young sportsmen and women represented all local authorities in the county including Harrogate, Ryedale, Hambleton, Richmondshire, York, Scarborough, Selby and Craven.
North Yorkshire Sport would like to thank all those involved in running and supporting this years event, without your support it would not have been possible