The 4^th Summer Youth Olympic Games (YOG) will take place over two weeks from 31 October 2026 in Dakar, Senegal, bringing together the world’s best young athletes for the first Olympic sporting event to be held on African soil.

The Games will be held across three host sites (Dakar, Diamniadio and Saly), and are intended as a catalyst to transform Senegal through sport, while becoming a blueprint for future YOG hosts.

Dakar 2026 is born out of the desire to take the Youth Olympic Games to all parts of the world and to put the Games at the heart of Africa’s transformation. Senegal’s sporting culture and practice are rooted in its history and population, especially young people. These Games seek to be synonymous with symbiosis, exchange, joy and pride, but also humility, for young people worldwide, in Africa and in Senegal. Sport is meant to be a celebration and a way of living together, a vector for peace, rapprochement and social cohesion.

This approach is embodied in the new motto for the Games, “Africa welcomes, Dakar celebrates”, which seeks 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.

Sports programme

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. This revised process will see a tailored sports competition programme designed for each edition of the YOG, created in close collaboration with the Organising Committee (YOGOC) and the International Sports Federations (IFs), to ensure the YOG retain their position as an elite multisport competition and sport engagement platform.

For Dakar 2026, this will see 25 sports on the competition programme and 10 forming part of a new engagement programme, aimed at helping to build interest and participation within the host country and host region by enabling local young people to try these sports rather than simply being spectators.

Dakar 2022 Youth Olympic Games postponed to 2026

In a decision approved during the 136th Session of the IOC on 17 July 2020, Senegal and the IOC mutually agreed to postpone the Youth Olympic Games in Dakar from 2022 to 2026.