The Queen came to Crystal Palace last week for The London Heathrow Mini Games, which saw eight Croydon teams compete in nine different sports against the 32 other London Boroughs.

On Thursday at Crystal Palace National Sports Centre, eight teams of local 8-11 year-olds took part in a scaled down version of the London Heathrow Youth Games, the largest youth sports event in Europe, which takes place this weekend.

Croydon's performances were mixed, with the only medal coming in boccia, a sport similar to bowls for young people with disabilities. The Croydon team won gold, although there were also creditable performances from the basketball team (fifth of 27 teams) and sportshall athletics (ninth of 33).

Borough organiser Jackie Bedwell said: "All eight teams performed really well and did their very best. It was great that they got to see the Queen at the end of the day."

Boccia

Boccia is a game similar to bowls where children roll soft balls (sometimes down a shoot), aiming for the target jack and the ball which comes closest wins the game.

Croydon's team enjoyed gold medal success, having won all their games, thanks to the bowling skills of Tulay Ozdemir, 10, Tom Whale, 10, and Amar Patel, 10, all of St Giles School, South Croydon.

Their coach Linda Williams said: "It was an excellent performance and the children thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Boccia is an ideal sport because anybody can take part regardless of disability."

Basketball

David Livingstone Primary School represented Croydon.

The team played well, winning their pool and progressing to the quarter-finals where they were knocked out by the eventual winners Newham.

It came down to the last 20 seconds when Newham, being one point behind, called time-out. They came back strongly and scored the winning basket on the final whistle.

Croydon eventually finished fifth. The team were Bobbie Whitehead, Mario Allen, Ashley McLean, Aaron Mclean, Demoy Allen and Parris Byrne.

Tag rugby

Atwood Primary School and St. Aidan's Primary School joined forces to compete for Croydon in the tag rugby.

After two draws and loss, Croydon gained their first win against Wandsworth. Despite playing well, Croydon could only manage one win from their remaining three matches and finished joint 15th.

Football

Croydon's football representatives were a team of Selsdon and Downsview children. In the first match Croydon dominated but fell behind to a goal against the run of play and lost to Havering 1-0.

Needing a win against Merton, Croydon played well but failed to create enough chances in a 0-0 draw.

With just one point from two games, Croydon were knocked out, finishing 24th of 33 teams

Hockey

Having won the Croydon Primary Schools finals hockey tournament, St Joseph's Junior School were chosen to represent Croydon.

Their first match was against Ealing which they won 2-0, with goals to Martin Larkin and Peter O'Rorke. Larkin followed up with three more goals in a 3-1 win over Camden.

The third match was against Bromley, who won 1-0, and the final match in the section resulted in a 1-1 draw against Greenwich, Larkin again scoring for Croydon.

The results meant Bromley won the section while Croydon finished 11th of 33 teams.

St Joseph's squad was Stephanie Jokham, Joseph Vernazza, Kieran Reeves, Keely Finegan, Joanna Duraes, Rachel Fernandes, Peter O'Rorke, Martin Larkin and Chantelle Fernandes.

Athletics, netball and swimming

Croydon teams competed in the sportshall athletics, netball and swimming competitions but were unable to win a medal, finishing ninth, equal 17th and 29th respectively.

July 10, 2002 10:30