Sutton's young athletes marched through the preliminary rounds of the London Heathrow Games.

With the finals of Europe's largest youth sporting event just nine days away, the borough's squad is already on course to equal, if not surpass, last summer's performances at the Olympic-style tournament.

Sutton was seventh last time around out of the 33 London boroughs competing and only missed out on a record breaking sixth place by a handful of points.

An estimated 20,000 young Londoners aged eight to 19 are expected to compete in more than 50 sports at Crystal Palace National Sports Centre and the list of Sutton's competitors through to the finals is growing by the day.

Six members of the borough's judo team are already through and are hoping to take a clutch of medals. Three out of the four members of Sutton's Tennis squad have also made it to the last eight, as are the table tennis, badminton teams, and both the boys and girls hockey teams.

Other squads that have already booked appearances in the finals include archery, badminton, canoeing, cycling, diving, football, gymnastics, netball, swimming, trampoline, triathlon, athletics and weightlifting. Many expect the borough's athletics and triathlon squads to hold the key to a record breaking performance for Sutton this year. Both are traditionally strong and Sutton's boys took last year's overall trophy while the girls were runners up.

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