Senegal Opens Africa’s First Olympic Games

The 2026 Youth Olympic Games opened on Saturday in Senegal, marking the first Olympic event ever held on African soil as the continent seeks a larger role in global sports.

Tens of thousands of spectators filled Diamniadio Olympic Stadium near Dakar for the ceremony, which blended formal tradition with vivid cultural displays under the motto “Africa welcomes, Dakar celebrates.”

Hundreds of drummers and dancers performed throughout the evening. Performers in yellow, black and white traditional Senegalese gowns formed a giant map of Africa, while the programme also featured West African oral storytelling, a concert by Senegalese singer Obree Daman and the parade of athletes. Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye formally declared the Games open.

Roughly 2,700 athletes aged 14 to 17 will compete through 13 November across 153 medal events in 25 sports, with venues in Dakar, Diamniadio and the beach resort of Saly. Russia is fielding a 13-athlete delegation that is competing under its national flag for the first time at an Olympic event since its suspension following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The Games also feature the first refugee team at a Youth Olympics, with six athletes based in Kenya and Uganda contesting track and field, judo and taekwondo.

IOC President Kirsty Coventry described the occasion as “a historic moment for Senegal, for Africa and for our entire Olympic family.” Coventry, a former swimming gold medallist from Zimbabwe, became the first woman and the first African to lead the International Olympic Committee last year. Dakar had originally been scheduled to host the Youth Games in 2022 before the coronavirus pandemic forced a postponement; the first summer edition took place in Singapore in 2010.