Richmond again took a clean sweep at the 2016 Thames Water London Youth Games regatta at the London Regatta Centre on Saturday.

The south-west Londoners retained their titles in the rowing, kayak slalom and kayak sprint, winning the kayak sprint for the fourth consecutive year and the kayak sprint for the third.

The borough won just one event in the rowing events – the senior girls’ coxed quads – but remarkably did not finish lower than fifth in any of the disciplines, meaning they came out on top overall.

Richmond team boss Dan Hughes was delighted and and reserved praise for the golden quad girls, who initially thought they had finished outside the medals.

“They’ve done brilliantly, there’s a proud tradition in the borough for all water sports, so it’s a big win,” he said.

“We were so consistent. We were hoping to be up there, but to win it again is a massive achievement for the team.

“The quad girls produced a terrific performance to win, they weren’t expecting it at all, they came off after the race and thought they had finished fourth.

“They didn’t realise until about five minutes later that they had won it.”

The south-west Londoners won four from a possible six events in the kayak sprint – the Lightning male and female, Cirrus junior girls and Cirrus senior girls.

There was a remarkable tie for second place in the competition, with Kensington & Chelsea equalling Tower Hamlets.

Fourteen-year-old Melody Hills won gold in the Cirrus senior girls despite racing against girls who were two years older than herself, and she felt the hard work made in preparation for the regatta was vindicated by the results.

“It feels really good to win the team event, we’ve been working and training extremely hard for this,” Hills said.

“The final was really difficult, the last stretch was so tiring but I managed to get over the line, I race up so I didn’t expect to win at all.“Hopefully I’ll be back next year to defend my titles!”

Richmond topped the kayak slalom table with a gold and a silver.

Lauren Avery won the junior girls title, while Callum Garforth took silver in the senior boys category.

Leo Timlin and Abigail Avery placing fourth in the junior boys and senior girls races, respectively.

Junior women’s kayak slalom champion Lauren Avery said:​ “I felt a bit of pressure coming into today, being defending champions and also wanting to do better than last year myself.

“But the training’s gone really well and it feels amazing to have two gold medals.

“I’m really proud of our team.”