Borough finish a disappointing 22nd in Jubilee Trophy, down five places on last year

Tower Hamlets’ all-conquering girls’ table tennis team were denied a third straight Balfour Beatty London Youth Games title after being beaten by two England internationals representing Westminster.

Having won the competition in each of the past two years, Sayeeda Miah and the rest of her team had high hopes of yet another gold heading to the National Sports Centre at Crystal Palace last weekend.

But the appearance of England juniors Tin-Tin Ho and Emma Torkington threw a spanner into the works for Tower Hamlets as Westminster claimed the title with a 3-0 victory in the final.

And Morpeth School pupil Miah, 16, admitted she hadn’t expected to see the England pair strutting their stuff on finals weekend, which saw all 33 London boroughs compete across 18 different sports.

“We wanted to make it three wins in a row so we were really disappointed to lose,” said Miah.

“I had no idea the two England girls lived in London, so it was a real surprise to see them compete.

“We wanted to win it again and we gave it our best shot but we just weren’t quite good enough.

“We know them quite well because we play against a lot of the top girls on the Grand Prix circuit.

“We’ve still got a few more events coming up and we’ve already come second at the England Schools Tournament in Hinckley, so it’s been a pretty good season still.”

Meanwhile Miah‘s male counterparts just missed out on a place in the semi-finals and had to settle for fifth place.

But there was a different tale for Tower Hamlets high jumper Ajibola Aderemi, who cleared 1.73 metres to claim a joint gold medal with Jack Downes of Havering.

Aderemi’s performance spearheaded an impressive Tower Hamlets men’s track and field team which finished third overall in the athletics competition behind Enfield and Islington.

The performances of the three was enough to push Tower Hamlets into a disappointing 22nd in the overall Jubilee Trophy standings, five places below where the borough finished at last year’s Games.

Richmond were the overall winners of the Games for the first time in their history.

Balfour Beatty is committed to helping raise the aspirations, motivation and attainment levels of young people in the communities in which it operates and has committed over �2million to help develop the London Youth Games until 2013.