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When the first modern Olympics opened in Athens in 1896, the founders dreamed of a truly global festival. Over the next century, the Games visited cities on several continents.
Europe hosted them again and again. The Americas, Oceania and Asia each got their turn, with the Games landing in cities from Los Angeles to Sydney to Tokyo and Beijing.
Yet one inhabited continent never got a single opening ceremony. For roughly 130 years, no Olympic event of any kind had been held in Africa, home to more than a billion people.
That finally changes with the Youth Olympic Games in Dakar, Senegal. They opened on October 31, 2026 and run through November 13, after a four-year postponement from the original 2022 date.
The athletes are aged 14 to 17, representing 204 National Olympic Committees. The lineup includes 1,350 boys and 1,350 girls, the first Youth Games with full gender equality in athlete quotas, sports, disciplines and events.
The program has its own firsts. Wushu, baseball5 and skateboarding make their Youth Olympic debuts, and baseball5, a bat-and-ball game played without a bat, is the first sport to get underway.
A Refugee Olympic Team is also competing at a Youth Games for the first time, with six athletes based in Africa. A continent that waited more than a century to host is now making history on several fronts at once.
