Youth Olympic Games open in Senegal

BASEBALL VARIANT: Taiwan were off to a winning start with a 2-0 victory over the hosts in baseball5, with the teams coach saying the youngsters were learning well

The Youth Olympic Games opened in Senegal yesterday, bringing an Olympic event to Africa for the first time as the continent seeks a bigger role in international sporting competitions.

About 2,700 young athletes aged 14 to 17 are competing through Nov. 13 in the capital, Dakar, the nearby city of Diamniadio and the beach resort of Saly.

Hundreds of dancers were to join a spectacle at the opening ceremony — which was to start after press time last night — celebrating Senegalese and African culture, in line with the Games motto: “Africa welcomes, Dakar celebrates.”

Taiwan’s baseball5 team prepare for their game against Senegal at the Complexe Tour de l’Oeuf at the Youth Olympic Games in Dakar on Friday.

Photo courtesy of Taiwan’s delegation to the Youth Olympic Games

“This is a first opportunity for Senegal and, by extension, for Africa, to discover new sports,” Thomas Dieme, a Senegalese student said as Dakar prepared to host the Games. “It is only natural that we should all be happy to welcome other people, other cultures.”

Among the celebrities expected at the opening ceremony was French actor Omar Sy, who has Senegalese roots and stars in the Netflix series Lupin, as well as Senegalese Italian TikTok star Khaby Lame, both ambassadors for the Games.

The mascot, Ayo, is a young lion wearing a traditional Fulani hat. Its name means “joy” in Yoruba, a language spoken in Nigeria and neighboring west African countries.

Senegalese influencer Khaby Lame carries the Youth Olympic Flame on the eve of the opening ceremony of the Youth Olympic Games in Dakar on Friday.

Photo: AFP

Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye was expected to declare the Games open at 6:30pm at the Diamniadio Stadium, with International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Kirsty Coventry and some heads of state in attendance.

The Youth Olympics are a smaller competition than the Summer Olympics. Singapore hosted the first summer edition in 2010. Dakar was initially due to host in 2022, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the event by four years.

Athletes are competing in 153 medal events across 25 sports, including athletics, swimming, 3x3 basketball and for the first time baseball5, with Taiwan starting their campaign in the compact baseball variant on Friday.

An aerial view shows Iba Mar Diop Stadium in Dakar ahead of the Youth Olympics Games on Friday.

Photo: AP

Taiwan scored a commanding victory over hosts Senegal, winning 2-0 in their Group A opener.

Taiwan took the first game 11-1 and the second 10-0 to earn the nation’s first Youth Olympic victory in baseball5.

Hsu Tzu-yi collected four hits in each game, while Chen Wan-zih contributed six hits and eight RBIs across the two contests.

“I think I was a little too excited in the first game and my legs went a bit weak, but once I got into the rhythm, I played smoothly,” Hsu told Top Sporting News Agency.

Chen said that her World Cup experience had prepared her well for Senegal.

“I prepared myself before the game, so I just played freely,” she said.

Coach Feng Wei-kuo said the players had experienced opening nerves and identified details to improve despite the convincing win.

Taiwan were to play Turkey yesterday, with Cuba the other team in the group.

Taiwan’s full delegation includes 37 athletes competing across 17 sports.

Baseball5 is a five-on-five version of baseball played by mixed-gender teams without a bat or gloves on a compact field.

Other sports making their Youth Olympic debut include Wushu, a Chinese martial art, and coastal rowing beach sprint, which combines beach runs with a head-to-head rowing race.

Beach wrestling is also at the Youth Olympics for the first time, a nod to Senegalese wrestling, the country’s national sport also performed on sand.

The first refugee team at a Youth Olympics have six athletes based in Kenya and Uganda in track and field, judo and taekwondo.

The Games arrive 130 years after the modern Olympics began in Athens.

Coventry, a Zimbabwean swimming champion, became the IOC’s first African and first female president last year.

“It is time for Africa, time for Senegal,” Coventry told media upon arriving in Senegal on Tuesday.

South Africa hosted the continent’s first soccer FIFA World Cup in 2010. Morocco is to cohost the 2030 tournament with Spain and Portugal. Rwanda hosted Africa’s first road cycling world championships last year and Formula 1 is returning to Africa with a grand prix in Rwanda starting early next decade. Botswana staged the World Athletics Relays in May.

African countries increasingly see sport as “a weapon in diplomacy and a tool for development,” Dakar-based sports analyst Frederic Sohounde said.

He pointed to Morocco’s investment in sports facilities and its ability to attract repeated competitions.

However, Senegal needs reliable maintenance funding and regular events after the Games to prevent its venues from becoming expensive, unused facilities, he said.

Russia’s delegation of 13 athletes is competing under its national flag for the first time at an Olympic event since restrictions imposed following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Russians at the Paris Olympics of 2024 and this year’s Winter Olympics competed as neutral athletes without national symbols.

That follows a shift in the IOC’s approach under Coventry, who has said the Olympics should not “hold athletes accountable for the actions of their governments.”

It could be a trial run for a full Russian return at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.