YORK athlete Alex Botterill stormed his way to double gold at the 2016 School Games in Loughborough and now has his sights set on the Tokyo Olympics.

The City of York Athletic Club runner clocked a time of 1:56.01 minutes to win the 800m before helping England North East to 4x400m relay gold.

The School Games is a major multi-sport competition for school-age elite athletes and around 1,600 of the nation’s finest young sports stars were competing across 12 events.

Botterill cruised to victory over two laps of the track in Loughborough and the Archbishop Holgate’s School pupil acknowledged that there was no better way to finish a productive athletics season.

“It is nice to add to my collection against the rest of a strong field,” explained the 16-year-old. “My season has gone really well and I wanted to finish it off well.

“I thought I would sit at the front and see what people wanted to do. It didn’t look like anyone wanted a quick race so I just sat in and kicked from the front.

“I think of the School Games as a 'mini Olympics' where lots of sports come together. The Opening Ceremony was really good and where we’re staying is really nice," he added.

“The ultimate aim is Tokyo 2020 and I have already started training hard for that. It’s a long way off and there are a lot of good athletes in the way but you never know.”

The event is supported by National Lottery funding from Sport England and delivered by the Youth Sport Trust.

With 15 of Team GB’s 67 medals at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games coming from School Games alumni, it has proven to be a great introduction to a multi-sport environment for the stars of the future.

Max Whitlock – who became Team GB’s first-ever gymnastics Olympic gold medallist by winning on both the floor and pommel horse at Rio 2016 – was on hand in Loughborough to officially launch the 11th edition of the event at the opening ceremony.

And Whitlock, who was a School Games reserve back in 2006, insisted that experience helped him on his way to making history in Rio last month.

“I was a reserve for the School Games but I try to turn everything into a positive,” he explained. “I learned a lot from the experience and the competition even though I wasn’t competing. As a reserve you’re training up until the day of competition and competing was the only thing I didn’t do.

“I watched the other boys and they did brilliantly so that spurred me on to go further," he added. "The people competing here are already ahead of where I was, so they too can achieve their dreams.”

The 2016 School Games is supported by a range of partners including the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Sport England, Youth Sport Trust, Department of Health and British Paralympic Association. The Games took place in Loughborough from 1-4 September 2016. Visit www.2016schoolgames.com for more information.