TWO weeks of sporting events involving hundreds of children culminated in a colourful closing ceremony yesterday.
The Sedgefield Olympics Festival involved 36 primary schools from across County Durham.
Each of the seven secondary schools in Sedgefield borough held their own mini-Olympics for their feeder primary schools.
The schools were each allocated a country representing one of the five continents of the Olympic rings - France, Australia, China, Ethiopia and Mexico.
They then competed in a series of events, based on running, jumping, throwing, team-work and co-ordination.
Students from the secondary schools helped to organise activities to improve their leadership skills.
They took part in workshops run by Paralympic champion Tanni Grey Thompson as a reward for their efforts.
The final, and biggest, event was held at Sedgefield Community College yesterday, followed by the closing ceremony.
Olympic athlete Allison Curbishley and Durham North West MP Hilary Armstrong attended the ceremony, in which the participating schools paraded with the flags they designed themselves.
Asda, in Spennymoor, provided bottles of water and a piece of fruit for each of the 1,500 youngsters taking part.
The event, orgnanised through the Sedgefield School Sport Co-ordinators Programme, was hailed a great success.
Diane Snowsill, partnership development manager at Sedgefield Community College, said: "The aim was to try to pull all the schools in the borough together, which has never been done before, and to give the youngsters lots of fun and activities.
"We also had an aim to try to improve leadership skills and give youngsters more confidence, and they definitely got a real buzz out of it."
The winning primary schools from each of the seven rounds were Byerley Park and Sugar Hill, from Newton Aycliffe, St John's, from Shildon, Ox Close and Middlestone Moor, from Spennymoor, Dean Bank, from Ferryhill, and Trimdon Juniors.
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