Mytime Active coordinate teams in the London Youth Games by working closely with schools and clubs across the Borough.
*Bromley WIN London Youth Games 2024!*
Bromley’s young stars WIN coveted London Youth Games trophy
The London Youth Games Foundation has announced that young people from the borough of Bromley have won the Jubilee Trophy at this year’s London Youth Games (LYG), affirming their fantastic performances across the season. The coveted Jubilee Trophy was awarded at the LYG Finals Festival, which took place at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. A celebration of sport, culture and community, the LYG Finals Festival is the culmination of a vibrant and competitive season comprising more than 50 qualifying events across over 30 sports. Thousands of young athletes from 32 London boroughs compete in the Finals Festival.
The Jubilee Trophy is awarded to the borough that accumulates the most points from the best 23 scoring competitions they have participated in across the season. Haringey placed second and Hackney third, while the London Borough of Wandsworth won the ParaGames Trophy. The trophy was presented to the Bromley Mayor and Mayoress on behalf of the team by Geoff Thompson MBE DL, a former World Karate Champion and chairman of the LYG Trust, at a ceremony on the Olympic Park on Monday 22 July. The trophy was donated in 1977 to commemorate the late Queen's Silver Jubilee and is the only trophy from this Jubilee which is still competed for.
The Mayor of Bromley, Cllr David Jefferys said: “Congratulations to the Bromley Youth Games team who won the coveted trophy as the overall winning borough, overcoming fierce competition from other teams at the games. With the Olympics now in full swing, it’s important to remember that sporting success starts at a local level and I look forward to seeing our players build on this achievement in Bromley. I am so proud of our players and thank all those who supported them to make this incredible achievement possible, including our partners at Mytime Active.”
Louise Hills, Mytime Active’s sports and events manager, adds: “As Borough Team Organiser for Team Bromley, I am thrilled to have won the Jubilee Trophy. Our teams of young people, led by our dedicated volunteer coaches from schools, clubs and community groups, showed exceptional talent throughout the entire London Youth Games. We won numerous individual and team medals, and achieved many personal best performances. The Games is more than just a sports events, it has a huge positive impact in our local communities, giving young people the opportunity to thrive in a high-class, competitive sports event and be part of a winning team. Mytime Active is proud to manage and support Team Bromley. Well done and thank you to each and every member of Team Bromley for their commitment and hard work.”
Mytime Active funds Team Bromley’s participation in the LYG, as well as coordinating the Bromley teams, organising uniforms, celebration events and awards ceremonies. Between 1986 and 2016, Bromley has won the Jubilee Trophy six times, taking home the title for four consecutive years from 2016 to 2019. Overall, 2024 is the 11th time Team Bromley has brought home the Jubilee trophy.
LYG Chair, Prof. Geoff Thompson MBE FRSA DL QP JM, emphasised the holistic benefits of the Games, saying: “The London Youth Games Finals Festival in this Olympic and Paralympic year provided a distinct opportunity for families, friends, coaches, officials, volunteers and organisations to work together and be part of something special in the lives of young people and communities. The Jubilee Trophy reflects a year-round exposure of sport for development and peace. The mental, physical and emotional health and wellbeing benefits were evident as the teams went through the final rounds.”
LYG CEO Andy Dalby-Welsh adds: “Huge congratulations to Bromley on winning the Jubilee Trophy and a massive well done to Wandsworth for their excellence in the ParaGames, to Hackney for winning the Inner-London Borough trophy and Hillingdon who secured the Most Improved Borough award.”
The London Youth Games Foundation is dedicated to the belief that ‘Sport is a fundamental right for all’. Working alongside partners Sport England, Nike, Greater London Authority, City Bridge Foundation, Garfield Weston and Peter Harrison Foundation, the Foundation is focused on improving accessibility to sport for young people of all backgrounds, channelling the Olympic spirit to transform opportunities for children across the city. Organising of the Finals Festival was supported by LLDC, Youth Charter, StreetGames, London Marathon Events, GLL, the Greater London Authority, and London Sport.
Mytime Active could not be more proud to support this fantastic initiative! Well done to everyone!
London Youth Games 2024
Sadly the London Youth Games 24 were due to kick start in November but unfortunately due to bad weather cross country had to be cancelled. A huge shame for Bromley after over 100 young people attended trails to secure a place in the team and were all set to defend the winning trophies from the previous year.
Over the next 3 months Team Bromley will be entering teams into girls and boys cricket, trampolining and boccia. We will also host a Team Bromley Celebration event for all teams and volunteer team managers to thank them for their support and hard work..
Teams to watch out for are boys hockey, girls and boys athletics, girls and boys swimming, the mixed badminton team and our ParaGames teams which will compete in Paragames swimming at The Spa on the 14th May and athletics and football. All of these teams finished in a top 3 position last year.
We’re looking forward to another successful and special year as we celebrate 20 of the London Youth Games! Here's a summary of what we've achieved!
Team Bromley - Celebrating 20 years of The London Youth Games!
Over the past 20 years, Mytime Active has managed and coordinated Team Bromley’s entry into the London Youth Games. We’ve seen some incredible achievements and sporting success competing within top quality sporting venues across the Capital. Teams and individuals have come together under the guidance of volunteer coaches to perform to their best ability against the toughest competition in London. Team Bromley’s standards remain high as our teams continue to achieve personal bests and great team performance - all contributing to the overall score for the borough.
Team Bromley have:
- Won the London Youth Games Jubilee Trophy 10 times
- Engaged with more than 360 clubs
- Worked with over 200 schools
- Recruited and trained 600 volunteers
- Won over 200 medals
- Engaged with over 8000 young people aged between 7 – 19 years
Our biggest achievement is winning the Jubilee trophy across 4 consecutive years in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019.
Highlights
Team Bromley at London 2012 Olympics
2012 was an exciting year for London and Team Bromley participants were invited to attend the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony. The entire team were awarded a free ticket as a thanks for representing the Borough in 2012 and watched the likes of Jess Ennis, Mo Farah and Usain Bolt make their mark. The opportunity was hugely inspiring for our young people and created memories that will last a lifetime.
Bromley swimmer represents Great Britain at The Paralympic Games
Following our winning success at the 2008 Games, the London Youth Games, and Greater London Authority (GLA) selected one Bromley competitor to attend the opening ceremony at the Paralympics Games in Beijing. Stephanie King, a member of the Bromley swimming squad was selected after an outstanding performance in the Youth Games Swimming Gala.
Stephanie, a member of Beckenham Swimming Club took part in The Torch relay which includes lighting the flame in the Olympic Stadium with 4 other young people from around the country symbolising the start of The Paralympic Games.
Stephanie King said “Thank you Mytime for giving me this opportunity to be involved in such a prestigious event. It was an experience I will never forget and I feel so inspired to continue training so I can reach my personal goals of achieving international success”.
Stepping stone to international success
Team Bromley has given competitive opportunities to young people who then went on to compete at an international level, including:
Dina Asher Smith – Athletics
The fastest British woman on record participated in the Bromley Schools Cross Country event 2006. She won a place on the team and was soon signposted onto Blackheath and Bromley Harriers Athletics Club. She represented Team Bromley in 2008/9 on the track and attended our annual celebration event at the Pavilion in 2014 and 2016.
Michael Gunning – Swimming
Michael represented both Great Britain and Jamaica and is a former Team Bromley Swimmer. Michael competed in the 200 metre butterfly and the men's 200 metre freestyle event in both the 2017 World Aquatics Championships and 2019 World Aquatics Championships.
Katherine Torrance – Diving
Katherine was one of a handful of youngsters picked from a London wide talent search of some 50,000 school children tested by Crystal Palace Diving Club in 2007. Katherine represented Team Bromley in 2009 in the London Youth Games Diving competition and went onto receive a scholarship from Mytime Active in 2011. She made her European debut in 2016, Later that year, she won two gold medals and one bronze medal at the World Junior Championship competition.
2023 round up.
Bromley finished in 4th place in the 2023 London Youth Games, we entered a total of 25 teams.
Bromley celebrated the end of the 2023 London Youth Games in July by finishing in FOURTH PLACE against 32 other London Boroughs. After 9 months of high-quality sports competition this is a massive achievement.
More than 320 young people either living or educated in Bromley played their part at Europe’s largest sports competition, as did the loyal group of volunteer Team Managers that commit to supporting our Bromley teams.
Team Bromley managed fourth place because 60% of the teams we entered finished in a medal winning position – which is outstanding.
Over the course of the 2023 youth games season: -
- 25 teams were entered in competitions across 15 different sports and from 15 different schools and sports clubs
- 35 Team Managers gave their time voluntarily to support the teams with training and at competitions.
- Team Bromley finished in 4th place on the Jubilee Trophy Score board – 3 points behind 3rd place Havering and 71 points behind the Jubilee Trophy winners Haringey which is an incredible achievement.
Team Reflection - A look at Team Bromley’s success across the entire 2023 season….
- The 2023 Games started with the cross-country events at Parliament Hill last November 2022… A perfect start - the team of over 80 girls and boys, won double gold! 100 points secured for Team Bromley.
- In February, the girls and boys team competed in the cricket cup final. It’s always such a tough competition... however the girl’s team from Hayes Cricket Club managed to win a space in the Cricket Cup Final.
- The final was played at the home of Cricket, Lords Cricket Ground back in March…An amazing experience for them - and the girls rose to the occasion and finished in 2nd place with silver medals and more points secured for Team Bromley.
- From February to May we had the para sports competitions. We had great support from pupils at Glebe School and Browns School, who represented Team Bromley in the para events. We managed to field teams in girls and boys Para swimming and athletics and entered a mixed team into boccia. Competitions took place at venues all over London. Amazingly every para team entered won medals.
- June was the busiest month for our Team Bromley squads, with several competitions taking place each weekend. And of course, culminating on the first weekend of July with the finals weekend at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford.
In summary, we had 15 medal winning teams:
- 6 teams won gold – aquathlon, boys’ athletics, boys’ hockey, girls swimming and of course as previously mentioned both cross country teams.
- 3 teams secured 2nd place – girls’ cricket, girls para swimming and the boys swim team all came away with silver medals.
- 6 teams finished in 3rd place with bronze medals - Athletics Girls, para-athletics girls and boys, boys para swimming, badminton and boccia.
- Other highlights - the netball, kayak, road cycling, girls’ football, girls hockey, boys cricket and trampoline, teams all scored valuable points for team Bromley too.
For more information on being part of the London Youth Games with Team Bromley please email Louise Hills.
For more information:
Contact Bromley’s Borough Team Organiser via email Louise Hills.
