Dakar Youth Olympics open with first Games on African soil

The Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games opened Saturday at the Abdoulaye Wade Stadium in Diamniadio, Senegal, the first Olympic sporting event ever hosted on African soil, with competition running until Nov. 13.

Almost 3,000 young athletes are taking part, the BBC reported, including a six-member Refugee Olympic Team making its Youth Olympics debut. Competition is spread across Dakar, Diamniadio and the beach resort of Saly, according to the Canadian Olympic Committee.

Premium Times reported that Nigeria’s 19-member team marched into the stadium behind sprinter Rosemary Chigozie Nwankwo, the flagbearer, who is expected to compete in the women’s 100 metres. The ceremony featured music, dance and cultural performances showcasing Senegalese traditions, the Nigerian outlet reported.

Canada is sending 28 athletes who will compete in 10 of the 25 sports on the program: archery, artistic gymnastics, badminton, beach volleyball, boxing, fencing, judo, rugby sevens, skateboarding and wushu, the Canadian Olympic Committee said in its Oct. 21 team preview. We reported on the Canadian team on Oct. 29. Skateboarding makes its Youth Olympics debut in Dakar with street events, and a 14-year-old is the youngest member of the Canadian team.

The refugee team is led by Yiech Pur Biel as chef de mission. Biel, who competed in the 800 metres on the first Olympic refugee team at Rio 2016, fled South Sudan as a child and grew up in the Kakuma refugee settlement in Kenya, he told BBC Newsbeat. “It’s a chance for them to tell the world and also to represent the population, especially the refugee population, in Africa,” Biel said.

One of his athletes, Arno Yafunga Botay, also lived at Kakuma after fleeing the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2017, when he was six, the BBC reported. Both Kenya and Congo are in the grip of the Ebola outbreak that we have followed this week, though the Games’ organizers have not announced any health measures tied to it in the sources we reviewed.

The Games were first set for 2022 but were postponed by four years after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the international sports calendar, the Canadian Olympic Committee said. They are the first Summer Youth Olympics since 2018. The slogan is “Africa welcomes, Dakar celebrates.”

Canadian results and schedules are posted on the Canadian Olympic Committee’s Dakar 2026 page.

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Sources: Premium Times, BBC and the Canadian Olympic Committee.