Barking and Dagenham lift Panathlon London Final winning trophy

The East London team, made up of children from eight schools in the borough, edged out Croydon by 56 points to 48, with two sides making their debut at the Olympic Park showpiece, Enfield and Hillingdon, finishing third and fourth respectively.

First-timers Lambeth were the winners of the Plate Final with 54 points, comfortably ahead of nearest rivals Sutton, who finished with 44, followed by Havering (36) and Harrow (34).

More than 200 disabled children from 25 schools were in attendance at Panathlon’s showpiece event, held at the famous Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park for the third year in succession.

It marked the climax of 16 qualifying events since January which have featured more than 1,200 children from over 100 schools across all 32 London boroughs.

As the victors celebrated victory in front of the cameras, tearful team manager Danielle Smith, Inclusive Officer at the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, said:

“I can barely speak! I’m just unbelievably proud of these guys. They’ve all done absolutely brilliantly. We’ve finished runners-up for the last few years. We’ve been scrapping for that first place so to have finally done is amazing. I look forward to this event every year. We do all of Panathlon’s events and this is the best day we’ve ever had.”

Barking and Dagenham’s victory rested on victories in the kurling, polybat, field athletics and closing relay races.

James Cole, 17, proudly showed off his gold medal as he said:

“This is one of the best experiences of my life. My favourite is the table top cricket because you get to really smash the ball. Panathlon has lifted my confidence and skills.”

The Panathlon Foundation (charity no 1072638) has been delivering competitive opportunities for young disabled people since 1999. It has already invested a total of £6.5m across London and 26 other counties and has invested more than £500,000 in competitions, sports equipment and coaching for young disabled people in 2015/16.

Panathlon has also trained more than 3,000 young leaders, aged 14-19 (14% of whom have learning difficulties), who act as sports officials for Panathlon competitions. This year’s leadership programme has involved 350 students from 20 London schools, while the London Finals will be officiated by some outstanding Panathlon leaders from across the country. 

Panathlon Challenge competitions include six events, all played with adaptive equipment to open up participation to more people and create a level playing field: Polybat (a variant of table tennis), table cricket (a table-top derivative of cricket), boccia (a Paralympic sport), new age kurling (an indoor derivative of curling), athletics field events and athletics relay races. First place = 10 points; 2nd = 8; 3rd = 6, 4th = 4, with points added up to find the overall winner. 

The Panathlon London Finals Day is the culmination of 16 rounds of competition, involving all 32 London boroughs, held between January and March 2016. Eight local qualifying heats split the 32 teams into Champions Cup and Plate sides of the draw, before four regional finals - North, South, East and West - of both competitions saw the winners progress to the Finals day. 

These are the third London Panathlon Finals to be held at the Copper Box Arena, which played host to the handball and modern pentathlon’s fencing competition during the London 2012 Olympics and goalball during the Paralympics. Panathlon also uses the 2012 Aquatics Centre within the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park to hold their South-East Regional Swim Finals in July.