Ayo the Mascot for Dakar 2026 [Photo: IOC /Greg Martin]
Counting Down to Dakar 2026
by Philip Barker
Teams are now arriving in Dakar for the 2026 Youth Olympic Games, the first global Olympic event to be held on African soil.
They were originally scheduled to take place in 2022 but were postponed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s been a long time; we’re very excited, we know it is going to be fabulous,” IOC President Kirsty Coventry said on her arrival in Dakar earlier this week.
“The energy is really good. I know Senegal is going to do an incredible job of welcoming the world and the world’s athletes to come and share in our African traditions and our excitement.”
A number of teams have harnessed the experience of their champions to lead teams at the YOG. The Australian team of 41 is led by Ken Wallace who won canoeing gold at the 2008 Beijing Games.
The British team is also led by a distinguished champion. A decade ago in Rio, Alistair Brownlee became the first, and so far only, triathlete to win an individual Olympic gold more than once. Now he takes on a different challenge as Chef de Mission of the British team in the 2026 Youth Olympics in Dakar.
“It is an interesting and special role and a very new thing for me,” Brownlee admitted.
“I was an athlete for a long time myself, went to three Olympic Games. I know about performing under pressure; I know about the stresses of these competitions and representing Team GB.”
He will lead a party of 15 competitors in seven sports at the Games.
“I see my job helping and ensuring all the team members perform to the best of their ability and also making sure they make the most of what is an amazing experience for them.”
“Hopefully as well as technical knowledge, I can try and be inspirational and be a leader for the team and inspire and motivate the team members to go away and maybe train that little bit more,” Brownlee added.
“The fact that he’s gone out there and had such a successful career, It doesn’t matter what sport, it is all similar experience,” said Louie Walker, who competes in coastal rowing, a new sport at the YOG which also makes its Olympic debut at LA28.
“Its very competitive,” said his team mate Lexi Gill.
“I’ve always loved the waves and the sea, it is great fun and good representing beach sport and showing what it is,” she added.
The Youth Olympics were the brainchild of the late Jacques Rogge and launched in Singapore.
At the first Games held in 2010, the British team included diver Tom Daley and Jade Jones from taekwondo.
Both later became Olympic Champions.
South Africa’s Chad Le Clos also competed at those first YOG in 2010 where he won medley gold. He followed with 200m buttefly gold at London 2012.
Noah Lyles took 200m YOG gold at Nanjing 2014. A decade later the Olympic 100m crown was his in Paris. Women’s 100m champion Julien Alfred of St Lucia was also a ‘graduate’ of the YOG’ though she only took silver at Buenos Aires 2018.
Other YOG competitors to later win Olympic gold include Dutch sailor Odile Van Anholt, weightlifter Deng Wei of China, American middle distance runner Aithing Mu and Paris 2024 modern pentathlon champions Ahmed El Gendy of Egypt and Michelle Gulyas of Hungary. Lithuanian swimmer Rūta Meilutytė unusually won Olympic gold in 2012 before her success in the 2014 YOG in Nanjing.
Some 2665 competitors from 204 nations are set to take part.
They will be joined for the first time at the YOG by a refugee team.
The host nation Senegal are expected to field a team of 135 competing across 23 disciplines.
This week they were received by Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye at the Presidential Palace.
“You are undoubtedly the first Senegalese athletes to compete at the Olympic Games on home soil, in front of your own supporters, in your own cities. It is therefore up to you to write a page in our sporting history that no one has written before you. And you will do so in great numbers, as our country is sending the largest delegation in its Olympic history,” the president told them.
The Flame which arrived in the country from Greece on September 12 is now nearing the end of its journey before the Opening Ceremony on Saturday night.
The Games continue to November 15.
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