Olympic history is set to be made. The Youth Olympics are set to begin in Dakar, Senegal, the first Olympic event ever to be held on the African continent. It's obviously a significant moment for the Olympic movement. One that's been a long time in the making. It may also be the swan song for the Youth Olympics.
The Youth Olympics were conceived by former IOC President Jacques Rogge and first held in 2010 (with Summer Youth Olympics in Winter Olympic years and vice versa). The whole idea was to have an IOC-sanctioned competition for athletes aged 15-18 that was a smaller-scale event than the main Olympics, giving different cities and countries that don't have the size and/or resources to host the Olympics themselves an opportunity to host. It's also given them a chance to experiment with different things like mixed-nation team events and been the testing ground for different events, some of which have made their way to the Olympic program.
However, the Youth Olympics haven't quite caught on the way the IOC hoped. Interest has been lukewarm at best. Some athletes in traditional sports have used the Youth Olympics as a springboard to success at the regular Olympics, but, in general, the Youth Olympics have been, at best, more of a curiosity than anything else. And I think the IOC realizes that. That's why current IOC President Kirsty Coventry doesn't seem too keen on continuing the Youth Olympics beyond this year's edition.
It's worth noting that this year's Olympics are the first in eight years. Buenos Aires hosted in 2018, with the next edition planned for 2022. However, after the COVID-19 pandemic pushed the Tokyo Games back a year to 2021, it created a situation where two Olympics were held six months apart. The Youth Olympics would've made three Olympic events in little more than 12 months, so the decision was made to postpone the 2022 Youth Olympics until 2026. Frankly, I'm not sure how many people noticed.
That delay pushed back the first Olympic competition ever to take place in Africa. Which might've been the Youth Olympics' only saving grace. Because the optics of outright cancelling the event scheduled for Dakar wouldn't have been good and they know that. Plus, Dakar had already been announced as the host, so it wouldn't have been right to take that opportunity away from them completely. The writing does seem to be on the wall beyond this edition, though.
After she became IOC President last year, Kirsty Coventry did a wholesale review of all things Olympics. That included the future of the Youth Olympic Games. When that review concluded earlier this year, Coventry announced that there would be a "pause" on the awarding of any Youth Olympics beyond 2026. Which sure makes it sound like there will be no Youth Olympics in 2030. If the IOC President doesn't see the value in doing it, that doesn't bode well for the future of the event.
There is one more Youth Olympics scheduled for beyond this year. The 2028 winter edition will be held in northern Italy, pretty much entirely reusing venues from the Milan Cortina Games. It was the same thing with the most recent Youth Olympics, as the 2024 winter event in South Korea primarily used the same venues as the 2018 PyeongChang Games. So, while there will be a Winter Youth Olympics in 2028, the "pause" will take effect after that. The 2028 Winter Youth Olympics very likely will be the last for either season.
Which, frankly, felt inevitable. The Youth Olympics were a great idea in theory. That's why the IOC gave them the greenlight. But the execution failed to live up to expectations. Public interest simply wasn't there. Worse, the Youth Olympics didn't make any money. Which would make it very hard to justify their continued existence. So, it really was just a matter of having the guts to pull the plug.
While the Youth Olympics may not have become the permanent, long-term event that was originally envisioned, they still left a lasting legacy on the Olympic movement. The Youth Olympics are where they tried out some different sports and events that eventually became part of the Olympic Games. And the reason youth-oriented sports like 3x3 basketball and breaking made their way into the Olympics was almost entirely because of how well they were received at the Youth Olympics.
At the last Summer Youth Olympics in 2018, the Opening Ceremony didn't take place in a stadium. It was held in Downtown Buenos Aires at the Obelisk. The idea was to make it more open and allow more people to attend. This was six years before Paris did its boat parade down the Seine and eight years before the dual ceremony in Milan and Cortina.
I'm not saying Paris wouldn't have tried their ambitious Opening Ceremony anyway. However, it had to have been incredibly reassuring to know that they also tried something innovative at the Buenos Aires Youth Olympics and it worked. Doing it was a risk. It's much easier to take that risk at a lower-profile event like the Youth Olympics than the much larger stage of the Olympic Games, with its worldwide television audience in the billions.
An interesting note, too, is how the Summer Youth Olympics have never been held in Europe. The first two editions took place in Asia (Singapore in 2010, Nanjing in 2014), then Buenos Aires 2018 and now Dakar 2026. In one way, that makes sense since it fit right in with the theme of bringing Olympic competition to different places and areas that may not be considered for the regular Olympics. However, you have to wonder if that lack of European exposure also contributed to their downfall. Had the Summer Youth Olympics been held somewhere like Budapest or Madrid somewhere along the line, how much would that have increased the overall interest? (The Winter Youth Olympics have the opposite problem. The 2024 edition was the only one not held in Europe.)
Or maybe it wouldn't have mattered and the Youth Olympics were doomed to failure regardless. After all, even though they share the Olympic name, they're not the Olympics, so that same sense of national pride simply isn't there. The fact that the Youth Olympics are an afterthought for the TV rightsholders doesn't help, either (NBC has relegated them entirely to Peacock). Although, in fairness, the TV networks were required to cover the Youth Olympics as part of their rights deals, so the degree to which they want to show them is a matter of debate. But, either way, the Youth Olympics simply don't have that same cache, so it was tough for them to find a place in a crowded sports calendar. (Especially since the Summer Youth Olympics were always scheduled for World Cup years.)
Is it a done deal that this is the end of the Youth Olympics? No. Using the word "paused" was very deliberate. But, at the very least, this will probably be the last one for a while. The first Olympic event in Africa is also a swan song for the IOC's hotbed of innovation after 16 years.
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