Over 300 young swimmers competed at the London Youth Games’ disability swimming gala at the Beckenham Spa on June 24, making the increasingly popular event one of the biggest disabled swimming events in the UK.

 

Sutton which fielded the largest team with 24 boys and 15 girls, won both the boys and girls events with 975 and 675 points respectively. Lewisham came second in both events with 820 and 598 points while Enfield finished third in the boys event (679 points) and Wandsworth were third in the girls (352 points). Over 20 London boroughs were represented at the gala.

 

“This event has continued to grow and has now become a major event for talent identification,” said organiser Nick Ibrahim. “A number of swimmers identified from this event have gone onto compete at a national level and we hope that it will not be too long before we see of the swimmers identified competing at the Paraylmpic Games.”

 

An appearance by Paralympic gold medallist Liz Johnson, reinforced the positioning of the gala as a stepping stone to national and international competitive swimming. Johnson told an enthusiastic audience that success required a lot of hard work. “For me it wasn’t always about medals. There were a lot of tears and sometimes I didn’t think I’d get there.” She encouraged the swimmers to stick with it because “it’s even sweeter then when you finally achieve your goal.”