Senegal hosts Africa’s first ever Youth Olympic Games

Senegal is kicking off the Youth Olympic Games on Saturday, bringing an Olympic event to Africa for the first time as the continent seeks a bigger role in international sporting competitions.

About 2,700 young athletes aged 14 to 17 will compete through Nov. 13 in the capital, Dakar, the nearby city of Diamniadio and the beach resort of Saly.

Hundreds of dancers will join a spectacle celebrating Senegalese and African culture, in line with the Fames motto “Africa welcomes, Dakar celebrates.” 

“This is a first opportunity for Senegal and, by extension, for Africa, to discover new sports," Thomas Dieme, a Senegalese student said as Dakar prepared to host the games. "It is only natural that we should all be happy to welcome other people, other cultures,” he added.

Among the celebrities expected at Saturday's opening ceremony is French actor Omar Sy, who has Senegalese roots and stars in the Netflix series “Lupin”, as well as Senegalese Italian TikTok star Khaby Lame, both ambassadors for the games.

The mascot, Ayo, is a young lion wearing a traditional Fulani hat. Its name means “joy” in Yoruba, a language spoken in Nigeria and neighboring West African countries. 

Watch moreOlympic fever grips Senegal as Dakar hosts Youth Olympic Games

President Bassirou Diomaye Faye is scheduled to declare the games open at 6:30pm local time (0830 GMT) at the Diamniadio stadium where International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry and some heads of state are expected to be present.

The Youth Olympics are a smaller competition than the Summer Olympics. Singapore hosted the first summer edition in 2010. Dakar was initially due to host in 2022, but the coronavirus pandemic delayed the games by four years.

Athletes will compete in 153 medal events across 25 sports, including athletics, swimming and 3-x-3 basketball. 

Several sports will make their Youth Olympic debuts. They include Baseball5, a five-on-five version of baseball played without bats and gloves, Wushu, a Chinese martial art, that can be choreography-based or combat sport, and coastal rowing beach sprint, which combines beach runs with a head-to-head rowing race.

Beach wrestling will also feature at the Youth Olympics for the first time, a nod to Senegalese wrestling, the country’s national sport also performed on sand.

The first refugee team at a Youth Olympics will field six athletes based in Kenya and Uganda in track and field, judo and taekwondo.

The games arrive 130 years after the modern Olympics began in Athens. Coventry, a Zimbabwean swimming champion, became the IOC’s first African and first female president last year.

“It is time for Africa, time for Senegal,” Coventry told media upon arriving in Senegal on Tuesday.

South Africa hosted the continent’s first soccer FIFA World Cup in 2010. Morocco will co-host the 2030 tournament with Spain and Portugal. Rwanda hosted Africa’s first road cycling world championships last year and Formula 1 is returning to Africa with a grand prix in Rwanda starting early next decade. Botswana also staged the World Athletics Relays in May.

African countries increasingly see sport as “a weapon in diplomacy and a tool for development”, Dakar-based sports analyst Frédéric Sohoundé said.

He pointed to Morocco’s investment in sports facilities and its ability to attract repeated competitions. Senegal, though, needs reliable maintenance funding and regular events after the games to prevent its venues from becoming expensive, unused facilities, he said.

Russia’s delegation of 13 athletes is competing under its national flag for the first time at an Olympic event since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 led to its suspension. Russians at the Paris Olympics of 2024 and this year’s Winter Olympics competed as neutral athletes without national symbols.

That follows a shift in the IOC’s approach under Coventry, who has said the Olympics shouldn’t “hold athletes accountable for the actions of their governments”.

It could be a trial run for a full Russian return at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.

The games come as Senegal grapples with a debt crisis and public frustration over living costs.

Billions of dollars of unreported debt by the previous administration have left Senegalese authorities with little money for public spending, while layoffs and rising living costs have fueled protests in recent months.

Many Senegalese said in interviews that they're prioritizing making ends meet over attending the sporting activities.

A government-led foundation drew criticism after announcing a contribution of 500 million CFA francs (about $854,000) to buy 200,000 tickets for school children. Critics questioned the money’s source, which the president’s political movement said was from donors and benefactors.

President Faye has defended spending on the games, citing renovated sports facilities, training for young people and contracts for Senegalese businesses.

(FRANCE 24 with AP)