England players Lily May Humphreys and Joe Pagdin have been selected to represent Team GB at the Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympic Games.
England players Lily May Humphreys and Joe Pagdin have been selected to represent Team GB at the Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympic Games.
They’re among 42 athletes selected by the British Olympic Association to compete in 17 sports at the Games, which run from the 6th–18th October.
Humphreys, 16, from Stoke by Nayland Golf Club in Essex, is one of England’s youngest ever Curtis Cup players and is a multiple winner. This year she became the Scottish women’s open amateur champion and last year she won English, British and European titles and also had her first victory in the USA.
Pagdin, 16, hails from Sheffield, Yorkshire, but is based at Lake Nona in Florida, where he competes successfully. He was a semi-finalist at the British Boys’ Championship, was in England’s winning teams at the Boys’ Home Internationals of 2017 and 2018 and has just helped GB&I beat continental Europe to win the Jacques Leglise Trophy.
Humphreys is in the England Golf Women's squad while Pagdin is a member of the boys' squad.
Team GB consists of athletes aged between 14 and 18 years old, with the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) playing a crucial role in the development of young athletes from the United Kingdom and across the world.
Buenos Aires 2018 is expected to welcome just under 4,000 of the world’s best young athletes from 206 nations for the third edition of the Games following Singapore 2010 and Nanjing 2014.
The Games will also make history through its commitment to gender equality by becoming the first Olympic event to host the same number of male and female athletes with 1,999 of each set to compete in Argentina.
Joining the athletes in Argentina will be 62 Athlete Role Models (ARMs) whose presence as Olympians at the Games will be to support, advise and inspire the young athletes.
Double Olympic taekwondo champion and Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic champion Jade Jones will feature as one of two ARMs from the UK with four-time Olympian and Rio 2016 gold medallist Helen Richardson-Walsh joining Jade in Argentina.
Mahdi Choudhury, Team GB’s Chef de Mission for Buenos Aires 2018 said: "Being selected to Team GB for a Youth Olympic Games is a fantastic achievement and our 42 young athletes should be hugely proud to be heading out to Argentina next month".
"Buenos Aires 2018 will offer a fantastic opportunity for our team to experience a multi-sport event for the first time and I’m sure it will act as a great springboard for their own senior Olympic dreams".
"Youth Olympic Games such as Buenos Aires offer the chance for young athletes to experience life in an Olympic Village, mix with competitors from different sports and nationalities, and are given the chance to grow as individuals as well as athletes".
"These events have helped shape the careers of Team GB Olympic stars such as Jade Jones and Tom Daley and we hope the same will be said for this group of young stars."
Image credit: Julian Herbert/R&A/R&A via Getty Images
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