On Saturday, the Olympic movement arrives in Africa for the first time. The Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games open Oct. 31 in Senegal, the first Olympic sports event ever held on the continent, 130 years after the first modern Games in Athens.
About 2,700 athletes will compete in 153 events across 25 sports until the closing ceremony on Nov. 13. The opening ceremony is at the Diamniadio Olympic Stadium. Competition is also planned in Dakar itself and in the beach resort of Saly.
The slogan is “L’Afrique accueille, Dakar célèbre”: Africa welcomes, Dakar celebrates. The mascot is Ayo, a lion the organizers describe as the “joyful and courageous spirit of African youth.” Organizers have promised to greet visitors with teranga, the Senegalese tradition of hospitality.
The Games were meant to happen in 2022. The International Olympic Committee and Senegal agreed in July 2020 to postpone them to 2026 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dakar waited four extra years for a moment the continent has waited more than a century for.
The program mixes established Olympic sports such as athletics, swimming, rugby sevens and skateboarding with newer ones: breaking and coastal rowing beach sprints. It also includes futsal, baseball5 and wushu taolu, which are not yet on the Olympic program. This is the fourth Summer Youth Olympic Games.
For Black readers in the United States and Canada, it puts a Black-majority African nation at the center of a global broadcast for two weeks, with Canada among the countries sending a team and publishing its own Dakar page for the Games.
The host has critics. Human Rights Watch has documented arrests under a law Senegal adopted in March that punishes consensual same-sex conduct with up to 10 years in prison. The Olympic Charter prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, and the IOC requires hosts to prevent and remedy human rights abuses.
Athletes march into Diamniadio on Saturday. The flame goes out on Nov. 13.
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