Sutton school children lead the launch of virtual London Youth Games

The London Youth Games believes ‘Sport is a right for all’ and are excited to announce the launch of the LYG Virtual Games on Monday 8th June. The LYG Virtual Games will take place over four-weeks, giving children and young people the chance to represent their Boroughs in a series of sport-related challenges that can be done at home, at school or while out for daily exercise.

Three weekly challenges will be released every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at 9.00am on the London Youth Games website and social media channels. Participants will then have until Friday at
12.00pm to complete the challenges and submit their scores. All the challenges will relate to a London Youth Games sport and have been set by young Londoners with a connection to the Games.

Week one features a fitness test from Cross Country runners Dominique and Ricky from Sutton, a Badminton challenge from Aaron in Lewisham and a Netball challenge from sisters Izzy and Elly from
Ealing. Izzy said: “Lockdown without sport has obviously been difficult as we always look forward to the London Youth Games. We are really excited however, to see how everyone gets on in this challenge and we hope it brings out the spirit of competition between the boroughs that we are missing. Good luck.”

The LYG Virtual Games are open to all children and young people from London, who will compete across the twelve different challenges to earn points for their Boroughs. You do not need to be a footballer to complete the football challenge or a netballer to complete the netball challenge. All the challenges will come with suggested adaptations for space, equipment and ability to ensure they are as inclusive as possible. A leaderboard with the latest Borough standings will be updated every week, and after the final challenge, the winning Borough will be crowned the first ever LYG Virtual Games champions.

Individual prizes are also up for grabs. Young people are encouraged to share videos of their challenge attempts on social media using the hashtag #ThisIsLYG to be in with a chance of winning the weekly
MVP (Most Valuable Player) award. Each week a MVP will be selected based on the ability, creativity and style shown in their videos and the winners will receive a pair of Nike trainers.

“At London Youth Games we have seen how sport can improve both physical and mental well-being whilst bringing people from many different backgrounds together. So, we wanted to put on the Virtual
Games to help young people through this difficult time, enabling young people from whatever background to be active, compete against others and to represent their Borough,” said LYG CEO Andy Dalby-Welsh. “We wanted our content to be created by young Londoners. The response has been brilliant. We now want as many young people as possible to get involved! So complete the challenges,
submit your scores and earn points for your Borough.”

More information about the LYG Virtual Games is available on their website.