Dakar 2026 to bring the world’s best young athletes in Senegal for the first Olympic sporting event to be held on African soil

As the Olympic Games Paris 2024 draw to a close, attention is turning to the next summer Olympic event – the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) Dakar 2026.

The YOG Dakar 2026 will take place across two weeks from 31 October 2026, bringing together the world’s best young athletes in Senegal for the first Olympic sporting event to be held on African soil. The Games will be held in three host sites (Dakar, Diamniadio and Saly), and are envisioned to serve as a catalyst to transform Senegal through sport, while also aiming to inspire new hope, opportunities and confidence among young people across Africa and become a blueprint for future YOG hosts. This approach is embodied in the new motto for the Games, “Africa welcomes, Dakar celebrates”, which aims to express how the young people of Africa are ready to welcome the world's youth to collaboratively shape the ambitions of their shared future during the Games.

Dakar 2026 will be the first Games to benefit from a new approach to the YOG sports programme, which aims to better fit into the local and regional context of each edition.

For Dakar 2026, this will see 25 sports featuring on the competition programme and 10 forming part of a new “engagement programme”, which aims to help build interest and participation within the host country and host region by enabling local youth to try these specific sports, rather than simply being spectators.