Senegal opens the Youth Olympic Games, the first Olympic event ever held in Africa

Around 2,700 athletes aged 17 or under are competing in Senegal this weekend. It is the first time in history that Africa has hosted an Olympic event: the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games, which opened on Saturday 31 October at the Diamniadio Olympic Stadium and run until 13 November.

The caveat: the Games were due in 2022 and were postponed in July 2020 because of the pandemic. They also come at a hard time for the country. According to AFP, Senegal is carrying heavy debt and a severe economic crisis, and many Senegalese are more worried about the cost of living than about the competition.

From athletics to breaking, across three cities

According to the IOC, the programme has 25 sports and 153 medal events, with full gender balance in every sport. There is athletics, swimming and judo, but also breaking, skateboarding, 3x3 basketball, beach wrestling and Baseball5. Events are spread across eight venues in Dakar, Diamniadio and the beach town of Saly, about 80 km from the capital, and the Youth Olympic Village is at Amadou Mahtar Mbow University in Diamniadio.

Senegal is fielding 136 athletes, according to AFP. Before the opening, the flame travelled 3,600 km through all 14 of the country’s regions. President Bassirou Diomaye Faye told the nation that “all of Africa’s youth” is watching “with confidence and pride”.

A refugee team for the first time

Dakar 2026 is also the first edition of these Games with a Refugee Olympic Team: six Africa-based athletes competing in athletics, judo and taekwondo, hosted by the National Olympic Committees of Kenya and Uganda.

The Games also open under the IOC’s first African president, Zimbabwe’s Kirsty Coventry, who is the first woman to hold the job.

Why it’s good news

For more than a century, the Olympic Games were held on every inhabited continent except Africa. Now thousands of teenagers are competing in an African country, in front of African crowds, and the IOC says the aim is to leave lasting opportunities for young people in Senegal and across the continent through sport and education.

The competition runs until 13 November. The next step for the continent could be bigger: South Africa is officially in the running for the 2036 Olympic Games, which would be the first Summer Games in Africa.