YOUNGSTERS taking part in a gymnastics festival were treated to a sporting first by a team of internationals yesterday.

Teenagers from Deerness Valley High Performance Centre stunned an audience of Bishop Auckland children when they performed a four-high tower routine for the first time in the UK.

Barrie Hindson, from Belmont, Durham, Scott Patterson and Stuart McKenzie, from Brandon, near Durham, with 14-year-old David Scott, from Washington, Wearside, are going to an international competition in Belgium at the weekend, which is also a trial for the European gymnastics championships teams.

With duos Lauren Belchamber and Sally McMenemy, and Carl Morritt and Chris Jones, they launched a school sports programme aimed at encouraging primary and secondary pupils to take up healthy lifestyles.

Coach Karl Wharton said: "Although they are all juniors, we hope they will make the senior teams.

"They are all still at school, and they are here to show the younger ones just what can be achieved."

All the youngsters who took part in the festival were presented with certificates by another inspirational athlete, Alex Burns, 93, from Newcastle, who ran the 10,000 metres in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Another 300 children from schools in Crook, Willington and Weardale will be involved when the festival moves to the Spectrum Leisure Complex, in Willington, today.