OVER 100 young sports men and women travelled to Exeter on July 1st to compete in the Eurobell Devon and Cornwall youth games. The games were the largest sporting festival ever held in the South West and one of the biggest area games in the country.

Leader of Caradon District Council Councillor Eric Lewis said " all participants were a credit to Caradon and should feel very proud of themselves for achieving representation at the games and for the way in which they conducted themselves on the day".

Each competitor has been involved in co-ordinated training and selection programme to ensure they went to the games fully prepared/ The five Secondary Schools in the District along with Basketball Development South West, Liskeard Hockey Club, Saltash Tennis Centre, G.O.A.L's Soccer, Cornwall RFU and Caradon Swimming Club all played a vital role in coaching, selection and team.

All these efforts were rewarded by a successful day of sport. The under-13 Caradon athletics team won gold medals. The under 15 Caradon girls hockey squad won bronze medals. The athletics team and girls hockey team will go forward to represent Cornwall at the Millennium youth games in Southampton from the 17th-21st August. Phil Brown Assistant Recreation Development Officer said, "this is a wonderful opportunity for the Caradon teams and we wish them all well at the Millennium youth games".

The Caradon mixed tennis team won the plate competition even though they had one player short. The Team was reduced to five after one of the boys had to withdraw at the last minute with an injury.

The Caradon boys basketball team were bitterly disappointed at missing out on representing Cornwall at the Millennium youth games. The team and the coach all showed great commitment over the 10 week coaching development, all this hard work appeared to have paid off when they reached the play off stages of the competition. However it was not to be - an overzealous event co-ordinator disqualified 11 out of the 16 teams including the Caradon team on a technicality. Even under these circumstances the boys acted responsibly and accepted this controversial decision.

The ethos of the games has always been that of participation, re-establishing district level competition and offering competitive opportunities to youngsters. Well done to all players who made up the Caradon teams for athletics (mixed), basketball (boy and girl teams), football (girls), hockey (boy and girls teams), netball (girls), tag rugby (girls), tennis (mixed) and swimming (mixed).