by Zuzana Martinkova

Great Britain has finished at 18th place at medal table at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games   while Russia, China and Japan stand top three.

With a big lead, the event dominant nation, Russia won with 59 medals over China and Japan.

Even though Great Britain did not make it into the first three, it is still a big win for a country and contestants themselves. Team GB consisted of 43 young competitors in age from 15 to 18, who were competing in 17 sports in the host country Argentina from 6 Oct to 18 Oct 2018.

The team’s athletes competed in 20 disciplines: archery, badminton, beach volleyball, boxing, BMX, cycling, diving, equestrian, golf, artistic gymnastics, acrobatic gymnastics, trampoline gymnastics, karate, modern pentathlon, rowing, windsurfer, shooting, taekwondo, triathlon and weightlifting.

On Wednesday, the 18-year-old Leeds boxer beat Thailand’s star Sarawut Sukthet in the opening round and secured a first gold medal for Team GB. Finn Hawkins took bronze in windsurfing earlier that week and won the Team GB’s first individual medal.

In the cycling combined event, a British duo Sean Flynn from Edinburgh and Harry Birchill from Devon won bronze and Amelie Morgan won silver in all-around gymnastics.

Morgan added two other gymnastics silver medals and there were also second-place finishes for 3m springboard diver Anthony Harding and trampolinist Andrew Stamp.

Great Britain ended the Youth Olympic Games with three gold medals after on the final day Caroline Dubois and Karol Itauma both won boxing titles.

Dubois, 17, claimed the lightweight title by beating Thailand’s Porntip Buapa and is now unbeaten in 35 fights.

Itauma, 17, beat Ruslan Kolesnikov of Russia in the light-heavyweight final.

All three of Team GB’s gold medals were in boxing which is a big success because Britain had never won a boxing gold medal at the Youth Olympics until this year’s Games.

Team GB claimed 15 medals in total in Argentina, with three of those coming in mixed international team events.

World junior champion Dubois is the sister of promising British heavyweight Daniel, who turned professional instead of targeting the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

Dubois is also known for her story when she in age of nine pretended to be a boy named Colin in order to train in a gym in West London.

In the interview for Team GB, 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.”

Next Youth Olympic Games will take a place in 2020 in Lausanne, France.

If you are interested in what happened on #YOGd2018 catch all the information and results from #BuenosAires2018 here 👉 https://bit.ly/2RvewQg