Celebrating five years of YOG Lausanne 2020 – a legacy of local engagement, youth participation and sustainability

The Winter YOG Lausanne 2020 brought together 1,784 athletes from 79 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) across eight venues in Switzerland and France. The event featured rising stars like Chinese freestyle skier Eileen Gu and Korean figure skater You Young who won gold at Lausanne 2020 before competing as elite athletes at the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022. Featuring 8 sports and 16 disciplines, the event drew 640,000 spectators and achieved full gender parity. Ski mountaineering, a sport with deep roots in French-speaking Switzerland, and women’s Nordic combined both made their Olympic debut, and ski mountaineering will be on the sports programme at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026. With 4,172 volunteers bringing the vision to life, Lausanne 2020 built a lasting legacy of community and youth empowerment, sustainable innovations and promoted the Olympic values.

Youth and community engagement at every step of the process

Guided by the IOC’s core motto for the YOG, “For the youth, by the youth, with the youth,” local youth engagement was central to Lausanne 2020. Nearly 150,000 students contributed to its success, from designing the mascot (Yodli) to composing the official song, “Start Now”.

Held alongside the YOG, the Lausanne en Jeux! Festival brought vibrant energy to Lausanne and competition venues from St Moritz to Les Tuffes. With the entire YOG Lausanne 2020 attracting 640,000 spectators, Lausanne en Jeux! brought together 200,000 people on Lausanne’s streets, and the festival offered the public over 250 workshops, exhibitions and activities. One of the highlights of the festival was the sports initiations, at which participants, including some 80,000 pupils, could try Olympic sports, sparking dreams of becoming future Olympians.

The success of Lausanne en Jeux! inspired Dakar en Jeux!, a cultural and sporting festival taking place annually in Senegal, as it prepares to host the Youth Olympic Games in 2026. The third edition of Dakar en Jeux! was held in November 2024. It aims to engage Senegalese youth and build excitement in the lead-up to the YOG Dakar 2026.

Lausanne 2020 inspired numerous initiatives, including Vaud Generations Champions, which supports young athletes transitioning to elite sport, while promoting the Olympic values among local young people.

Through the “1 Class – 1 Champion” programme offered by the Vaud Generations Champions, athletes partner with school classes in Vaud for a year, offering students opportunities to attend competitions and participate in sports activities. In the 2022-23 period alone, 1,905 schoolchildren took part in 47 meetings with these inspiring champions.

Promoting Olympic values through supporting athletes

The Lausanne 2020 Education Programme, developed with Athlete365, offered YOG athletes and their entourage interactive resources to support their career paths. The programme included performance and injury-prevention assessments, video content workshops, and engagement with younger athletes and International Sports Federations.

Mental health and training courses, created in collaboration with the University of Lausanne (UNIL), the EPFL and Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV), remain accessible via the CHUV website, extending the programme’s legacy.

Fostering sport across the country

Lausanne 2020 organisers aligned their venue planning with reforms of the IOC’s strategic roadmap, Olympic Agenda 2020, focusing on reducing construction-related emissions and ensuring new venues were built only with clear long-term use plans for the local community.

The YOG Village, known as the Vortex, was designed with this long-term vision in mind. After accommodating athletes during the Games, it was repurposed into student housing, and now provides accommodation for 1,200 students.

The Games also accelerated the redevelopment of the Vaudoise Arena, which hosted ice hockey, hockey 3x3 events as well as the Opening Ceremony. Today, it serves as the home of the Lausanne Hockey Club and a new short-track programme established after the YOG. The outdoor ice rink, Patinoire Yodli, was named after the Lausanne 2020 mascot, and it remains open and free to the public for ice skating practice. A recognised hub for international artistic and sporting events, the Vaudoise Arena is central to Lausanne’s bid to host the 2027 European Figure Skating Championships.

Hosting the YOG competitions allowed venues across Switzerland and France to undergo renovations, expand capacity, and gain invaluable experience in staging Olympic events. These facilities remain active, welcoming global athletes and visitors.

For instance, Les Diablerets, which hosted Alpine skiing events, trained athletes from over 30 national teams ahead of the 2022 Wengen World Cup and the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022. Leysin, the site for freestyle skiing and snowboarding, went on to host the Junior Freestyle Ski and Snowboard Championships in 2021.

Inspired by YOG venue upgrades, the Swiss Olympic Park Project was launched to establish training centres for both winter and summer athletes across the country.

The Games as a laboratory for sustainable innovation

The Winter YOG Lausanne 2020 embraced Olympic Agenda 2020 reforms, prioritising sustainability and aligning with the host region’s long-term goals. The Games pioneered the “decentralisation” approach, becoming the first bi-national YOG with events held in both Switzerland and the French Jura. This approach reduced the carbon footprint of the event by leveraging existing venues and local expertise, building community enthusiasm and venue ownership for long-term use. The decentralisation approach set a precedent for future Games editions, exemplified by the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, which will be spread across several regions of Italy.

Lausanne 2020 also set a precedent for sustainable practices, such as prioritising public transport for athletes, staff and spectators. Over 80% of athletes and NOC staff relied exclusively on public transport, significantly cutting emissions.

The Games also served as a testing ground for innovation. Notably, the cauldron, designed by ECAL industrial design students, used eco-responsible wooden pellet fuel – a first in Olympic history.

Lausanne celebrating five years of YOG legacy

Approximately 1,000 students from Vaud participated in a quiz on Olympism and Lausanne 2020’s legacy, which was organised as part of the fifth-anniversary celebrations. The winning class will enjoy a week of snow sports in Leysin, while classes placing second to fifth will have a regional snow sports day.

To mark the fifth anniversary of Lausanne 2020, a celebratory event will be held at the Vaudoise Arena during the Women’s National Cup Final-4 on 25 and 26 January. Activities will include sports initiation sessions in the Arena’s outdoor area and free access to the “Yodli Patinoire”.