Photo: IOC/Greg Martin

Dakar 2026 · Youth Olympic Games

Africa's first Olympic Games

Dakar · Diamniadio · Saly — 31 October to 13 November 2026

It has taken 130 years of the modern Olympic movement, and a four-year pandemic delay, for the Olympic rings to arrive in Africa. Senegal now hosts the fourth Summer Youth Olympic Games, the first Olympic event ever staged on the continent.

Dakar was awarded these Games in 2018 for 2022, before COVID-19 pushed them back to 2026. The wait has given the story more weight. The athletes are aged 14 to 17, but the stakes are continental: the organisers' motto, Africa Welcomes, Dakar Celebrates (in Wolof, Afrig Dalal, Ndakaaru Jëmël), makes the point that these are Africa's Games, not only Senegal's.

They are also the first Youth Olympic Games under IOC President Kirsty Coventry, the Zimbabwean former swimming champion elected in 2025 as the first African, and the first woman, to lead the IOC. That pairing — the first African IOC President and the first Olympic event in Africa — is the frame through which much of the world will read Dakar 2026.

A Games of firsts

• First Olympic event in AfricaNo part of the Olympic programme had ever been held on the continent before.
• Full gender parityThe first Summer YOG with an equal number of events for girls and boys, across every sport.
• A Refugee Olympic TeamThe first refugee delegation at a Youth Olympic Games: six athletes from Kenya and Uganda in athletics, judo and taekwondo.
• Four new sportsBaseball5, wushu, coastal rowing beach sprint and beach wrestling — a nod to Senegal's own wrestling tradition — make their YOG debuts.
• Baseball5 went firstTürkiye v Cuba on 30 October was the first competition of the Games, a day before the Opening Ceremony.
• A mascot by a teenagerAyo, a young lion whose name means "joy" in Yoruba, was designed by 16-year-old student Ndèye Mariama Diop through a national schools competition.

Three cities, one Olympic project

Dakar is the urban showcase, with swimming, athletics, breaking, skateboarding and rugby sevens at venues including the Iba Mar Diop and Tour de l'Oeuf complexes and the Corniche West.

Diamniadio, the new city around 40km from the capital, is the logistical heart. It hosts the Opening Ceremony at the 50,000-seat Abdoulaye Wade Stadium, indoor sport at Dakar Arena and the Expo Centre, the equestrian centre, and the Youth Olympic Village on the Amadou Mahtar Mbow University campus, linked to the city by the TER regional express train.

Saly, on the coast, stages the beach and water sports: beach volleyball, beach handball, beach wrestling, coastal rowing, sailing and triathlon.

The stories to watch

The Refugee Olympic Team. Before travelling to Senegal, the team trained at a camp in Kaptagat, Kenya, in the heart of the country's distance-running highlands. Its presence carries the IOC's refugee programme into the youth Games for the first time, with a squad drawn largely from athletes based in Africa.

IOC Refugee Olympic Team training camp for Dakar 2026, Kaptagat, Kenya, September 2026.

The narrative of the ceremony. Stage director Adama Diop has framed the Opening Ceremony in Diamniadio as Africa reclaiming its own story on the Olympic stage — a deliberate counterpoint to how the continent has often been represented by others.

Who competes, and under which flag. Dakar is also reported to be the first Olympic event since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine at which Russian athletes may compete under their national flag, a decision likely to shape some of the international coverage.

What comes next for Africa. On the eve of the Games, Durban was named as South Africa's candidate for the 2036 or 2040 Olympic Games. Dakar's delivery will be read as evidence for whether the continent is ready for the full Olympic Games.

Games Time News in Dakar

Short reports from the build-up and the first days of the Games.

All photographs © IOC, used for editorial purposes, credited to the IOC photographer named in each caption. Sources: IOC / Olympics.com; Reuters via The Japan Times; AFP via TRT World; Africanews; Inside the Games; Panam Sports.