Buenos Aires YOG: One year to go and already an important legacy!

The Argentinean capital is busy preparing to host the 3rd Summer Youth Olympic Games. Check out the videos of a rapidly transforming city and the facilities being built, which will leave a significant legacy for Argentinean sport and provide over one thousand affordable apartments.

Buenos Aires YOG: One year to go and already an important legacy!
© Buenos Aires 2018

Preparations are well on track for the 3rd Summer Youth Olympic Games (YOG), which will be held in one year in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, from 6 to 18 October 2018.

The YOG are a catalyst for a major social and urban renovation project in the south of the city. This includes the Youth Olympic Village and the Youth Olympic Centre, a new facility that will play host to 15 of the 32 sports on the programme and will enable more than half of the athletes to travel to their competition venue on foot.

Building work on the “Centro Olímpico de la Juventud” is at an advanced stage; sports arenas are springing up, and some of them will be up and running very soon. And this superb, spectacular sports complex, surrounded by greenery, will represent an important legacy for high-level Argentinean sport after the YOG, as it will become the new headquarters for Argentina’s high-level sports centre (CeNARD).

Young Argentinean athletes Julian Jato (gymnastics) and Lucas Guzman (taekwondo) tell us about the Youth Olympic Village: 31 buildings which are under construction or already finished, and which will result in 1,159 apartments with a total capacity for 6,208 residents. Taking us into one of the rooms where the YOG 2018 athletes will be staying, they come across Rio 2016 field hockey Olympic champion Matias Paredes, who tells them: “There are lots of young people who would love to be in your position! Embrace the values of the Games, with the sense of responsibility that an event of this scale deserves. The whole country will be watching you!”

This is in fact an entire new district in the Argentinean capital, located 25 minutes away from Ezeiza International Airport, and will be converted into affordable housing, leaving a lasting legacy for the city.