What is YOG?

2 min read|
What is YOG?
© Getty Images

What?

The Youth Olympic Games (YOG) are an elite sporting event for young people from all over the world. But an event distinct from other youth sports competitions, as they also include a series of educational activities with three areas of focus: protecting the athletes, working on performance, and assisting the athletes outside sport.

The sports programme is mainly based on that of the Olympic Games. In addition, it includes exciting new sports, disciplines and formats, such as breaking, sport climbing, 3-x-3 basketball, 3-x-3 ice hockey and mixed gender and mixed National Olympic Committee (NOC) events.

Away from the field of play, the education programme uses a variety of fun and interactive activities, workshops and team-building exercises to give the participating athletes the opportunity to learn about the Olympic values, explore other cultures, develop the skills to become true ambassadors of their sport, and improve their training methods and performance.

© IOC

Who?

The Youth Olympic Games are aimed at bringing together talented young athletes aged from 15 to 18 from around the world.

© IOC

The most recent Summer YOG in Buenos Aires in 2018 featured 4,000 athletes and achieved gender equality for the first time. The latest Winter YOG took place inLausanne in 2020 and featured 1,872 athletes.

Non-athlete participants, namely the Young Reporters, YOG Ambassadors and Athlete Role Models, are also an integral part of the YOG experience.

When?

Like the Olympic Games, the YOG are held every four years. The first summer edition was held in Singapore from 14 to 26 August 2010, and the first winter edition was held in Innsbruck, Austria, from 13 to 22 January 2012.

© Getty Images

The next editions took place in Nanjing, China (in 2014), Lillehammer, Norway (in 2016), Buenos Aires, Argentina (in 2018) and Lausanne, Switzerland (in 2020). In 2024, the Winter YOG will be held in Gangwon, South Korea followed by Dakar, Senegal in 2026.