English Schools champion Sabrina Sinha set to be among the young London athletes in action for the cross-country event

Over 1000 young Londoners will descend on Parliament Hill on Saturday (November 14) for the first event of the new Balfour Beatty London Youth Games season.

The event will be the start of building on last year’s record number of participants for the Games, with over 136,000 young people taking part in 2015.

The cross-country competitions will feature representatives from all 33 London borough teams, including several national and regional champions. London 2012 Olympic marathon runner Scott Overall, a former London Youth Games competitor, will be in attendance to present the medals.

Races will take place in the under-11, under-13, under-15 and under-17 age groups, with prizes for the leading overall male and female teams.

Among the day s highlights should be the female under-17 race where Greenwich’s Sabrina Sinha (pictured) will be going for an unprecedented fifth successive victory. She triumphed in the under-13 race in 2011, the under-15 in 2012 and 2013 and the under-17 in 2015.

The Cambridge Harrier, who attends Bromley High, is an English Schools champion and also a talented swimmer and triathlete. She cannot afford to be complacent though with Bromley s Jessica Keene looking most likely to pose a threat, having come a close second in 2015.

The male under-15 event is loaded with nationally-ranked runners and could present one of the highest quality races of the weekend.

Noah Armitage-Hookes from Southwark will try to retain his title. Other contenders could be Hammersmith & Fulham s Lucillo Burrell, who took silver, and Maxim Posolovsky for Westminster, who took home bronze in 2015.

In the male under-13 race, last year s gold medallist Rowan Fuss of Bromley is back to defend his title. He will again be running against last year s silver medallist, Harley Norman of Croydon. With only 1 second between them last year, it could be a great race to watch.

The London Youth Games cross-country has a huge heritage. As well as Overall, double Olympic champion Mo Farah and Olympic 10,000m and 5000m finallist Julia Bleasdale are all former competitors.

The first race gets underway at 10.50am, with the overall team presentations at 1.45pm.

See londonyouthgames.org

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