Across the four days, 1500 competitors took part in 11 different sports across the Loughborough University campus and beyond. Alongside the sporting events, athlete mentors were on hand to work with the participants across an athlete enrichment programme and students from some sports took part in immersive athlete experiences and were given the opportunity to get up close and personal to top level sport.

This year’s Games were also designed to provide positive experiences for children and young people and help to tackle inequalities by broadening access to talent pathways.

The event kicked off on Thursday with an amazing opening ceremony packed with music, dance and good luck messages from previous Games alumni, all hosted by Tom Gayle and Pamela Cookey. After the competitors paraded into the arena, the Games were declared open for 2024 by Olympic triathlon bronze medallist Sam Dickinson.

Friday saw a full day of action in amazing weather, with eight of the events taking place across campus and cycling and triathlon taking the Games offsite to Derby and Donington Park. The first medals of the weekend were given out as field events took centre stage in the athletics and closely fought qualifying matches took place in cricket, hockey and netball.

For many athletes, the School Games National Finals are the first opportunity to experience a multi-sport Games, with everything that comes with an event of this size.  To help guide them through, 21 athlete mentors from the True Athlete Project representing a wide range of sports, delivered an athlete enrichment programme covering topics such as Effort and Attitude, Self Compassion and The Values Led Path. They were also available for 1-1 sessions and to offer advice and guidance from their years of experience in elite level sport.

Saturday saw another full day at the Games with Netball starting the day at 9am and going on through to triathlon finishing the day off at around 8pm with presentations to the winning competitors. Saturday evening also saw a Parents Panel where the True Athlete Project hosted a panel discussion to talk about some of the issues involved with raising a young athlete.

Throughout the four days, competitors across all sports were given the opportunity to take part in the Obstacle Course Experience, the new element in modern pentathlon that is taking the place of show jumping in the event. The experience was intended to provide an opportunity for play, exploration and fun, as well as exploring comfort and discomfort zones.

Despite the threat of rain on Sunday, the clouds cleared and the full programme of events was able to take place. Sunday was finals day for many sports with medals given out in 3x3 basketball, netball, hockey, cricket and 3x3 wheelchair basketball. One of the final sports to finish was wheelchair tennis where champions were crowned in singles, doubles and mixed doubles. 

A full list of results can be found here.

We’ve also taken some incredible photographs over the four days and we’ve added some of the best to a Flickr album. We’ll be adding more images over the days ahead.

We’d like to say a huge thank you to all the competitors, volunteers, officials and everyone else who made the School Games National Finals in 2024 such an amazing success.