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Canterbury's Ruben Harris wins wheelchair tennis triple while Kent youngsters also excel in athletics, hockey, cycling and triathlon in School Games National Finals
05:00, 18 September 2022
Wheelchair tennis player Ruben Harris aced the School Games National Finals at Loughborough University.
Fifteen-year-old Harris, who trains at Canterbury Tennis Club and Whitstable Lawn Tennis Club, won three gold medals in the under-18 boys' singles, boys' doubles and mixed doubles at the UK’s biggest multi-sport event for talented athletes and para athletes between the ages of 13 and 18.
Canterbury's Charlotte Henrich, 16, set the pace to win the girls' 300m in 38.90sec and a throw of 53.74m secured boys’ discus gold for 16-year-old Timi Babatunde, from Gravesend. Dartford's Kai Barham, also 16, won the boys’ hammer with 67.17 and Chatham's Faith Akinbileje, 16, clocked 23.95 for victory in the girls' 200m.
Para triathlete Ollie Scott, from Faversham, won two golds and a silver. The 14-year-old's wins were in the para circuit race and the aquathlon while Lily Beer, 17, was another gold medallist - the Faversham player winning as England sealed the girls' hockey title. Sixteen-year-old goalkeeper Eddie Rowney, from Canterbury, won team gold as England's under-17 boys won their hockey event.
There was a medal double for 15-year-old triathlete Lauren Mitchell, from Gravesend. She won silver in the girls’ bike circuit race in 15min03sec and added bronze in the aquathlon in 12.33, while Dartford’s Debare Alade, also 15, took bronze in the shot put with a throw of 14.57. Gabriella Horne, 15, from Rochester, earned a pair of silvers in triathlon.
Whitstable’s Darcey Carter, 17, helped Team Sciver to second place in the ladies’ cricket event.
Carys Lloyd, 15, from Maidstone, finished second in the cycling criterium and there was further success in cycling for the town, with Anna Lloyd, 13, taking bronze in the scratch race. Rebecca Akinsanya, 15, from Rochester, took bronze in the girls' 200m with 25.13 and was in the team which finished the 4x100m relay in third.
Teenager Ellis Kottas secured a bronze medal in wheelchair racing - on the anniversary of her injury.
Kottas, 19, was a competitive swimmer before she suffered a spinal cord injury, but the former Tonbridge Swimming Club star, who lives in Sevenoaks, has transformed herself into an elite wheelchair racer and came third in the 100m race with 21.37. She was also part of the third-placed relay team.
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