Good newsAfrica Hosts Its First Olympic Event as Dakar Opens the Youth Games
Senegal's president opened the Youth Olympic Games on Saturday night, the first Olympic event ever held in Africa. About 2,700 teenagers will compete in 25 sports, four of them new, until 13 November.
Read the bad side of this story
Heat Cuts the 800m Freestyle as Debt-Hit Senegal Opens Africa's First Olympic Event
At 19:57 on Saturday, Senegal’s president, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, declared the Youth Olympic Games open, and an Olympic event began on African soil for the first time. The International Handball Federation counted more than 1,000 performers in the ceremony. Greece led the parade of nations, the host team walked in last, and a team of refugee athletes marched in the colours of its own flag.
The mascot is a young lion called Ayo, and the actor Omar Sy and the online creator Khaby Lame are ambassadors. Lame carried the flame through Dakar on the eve of the opening. The AP notes that Singapore hosted the first summer edition in 2010, and the previous edition was in Buenos Aires in 2018.
Competition runs to 13 November across Dakar, Diamniadio and Saly. By the count in the Associated Press report carried by the Taipei Times, about 2,700 athletes aged 14 to 17 will contest 153 medal events in 25 sports.
What is new on the programme
Four sports make their Youth Olympic debut: Baseball5, wushu, the coastal rowing beach sprint and beach wrestling. Al Jazeera’s account from Dakar describes teenagers wrestling on the city’s beaches and swimming out to Ngor Island, so two of the new events sit close to local habits.
Six refugee athletes, based in Kenya and Uganda, compete in athletics, judo and taekwondo, according to the AP. Russia sends 13 athletes under its own flag, the first time it has done so at an Olympic event since the restrictions that followed its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Al Jazeera adds that Ukraine’s public broadcaster refused to show the ceremonies for that reason.
| Dakar 2026 at a glance | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Athletes | about 2,700 | AP |
| Medal events | 153 in 25 sports | AP |
| Dates | 31 October to 13 November | AP |
| Host sites | Dakar, Diamniadio, Saly | AP |
| New sports | 4 | AP |
| Refugee athletes | 6 | AP |
A long wait, and a chance to show something
The Games were due in 2022. After the pandemic, Senegal’s then-president, Macky Sall, asked for more time, and the event moved back four years, Al Jazeera reports. The IOC president, Kirsty Coventry, a former Olympic swimming champion from Zimbabwe, told the broadcaster the Games are a chance for Africa to show what it can do. She added that a host does not have to be rich if the movement keeps the Games simpler and uses existing venues.
The organising committee’s president, Mamadou Diagna Ndiaye, told the athletes to “Dare to make friends”. For many people in Dakar, Al Jazeera notes, visas and money make travel hard, so this time the world has come to them. Beach handball, with eight men’s and eight women’s teams at Saly, plays from 9 to 13 November.
The heat, handled
Organisers did not wait for problems in the pool. With water temperatures elevated, World Aquatics moved the morning session an hour earlier, made every 400m race a timed final and dropped the 800m freestyle, SwimSwam reported, quoting an official of the body. Daily highs are forecast at 29 to 31°C, with overnight lows near 27°C. A swimmer entered in the 800m may be allowed to enter another event so that everyone still races twice.
Several large swimming nations have not entered the pool events, including the United States, Britain and Australia. China, Italy, Hungary and South Africa are among those that have, SwimSwam says.
What to watch
The first medals come on the programme’s opening days, and the beach sports run later in the fortnight. Senegal’s finances will matter after the closing ceremony, a point the bad side of this story covers. What the Games leave in Dakar will be judged after 13 November.
