Winners announced for 500 Words short story competition

After a record 120,421 entries, six young authors have been crowned winners of Chris Evans' 500 Words competition.

The Radio 2 competition challenges under-13s to write a story in just 500 words.

This year's winners included stories about heroic pigeons, warring cake-bakers, and living with a stammer.

Gold Medal winners won a stack of books as tall as Chris Evans, Silver won a pile as tall as Alex Jones, and Bronze won their own height in books.

Here are the winners:

10-13 years category

Gold: Amabel Smith (10) - It's A Wide World

Silver: Hannah Sennouni (12) - Londoner Pigeon

Bronze: Lara Akhurst (11) - Blue

5-9 years category

Gold: Sofia Zambuto (9) - Fight For Life

Silver: Robyn Fielding (8) - The Word That Wouldn't Come Out

Bronze: Emily Potts (9) - Cake Wars

Chris Evans said 'Every single young writer in this competition deserves a round of applause, a hats off and a whopping well done for creating such sensational stories.'

Sofia, whose story won the 5-9 years category, missed the deadline for the 2014 competition by 30 seconds.

"I'm kind of pleased I missed it now," she laughed.

On the judging panel were kids' authors Malorie Blackman and Charlie Higson, as well as former Top Gear and Wipeout presenter Richard Hammond.