From medals to the search for meaning: how to remember the youth Olympics in Dakar

George Solovey won a bronze medal in breaking at the Youth Olympic Games

The Youth Olympic Games, held for the first time in Africa, came to an end yesterday, and it is so nice that on the last day of the competitions the Belarusian team’s piggy bank was replenished with another bronze award! In an outlandish break for sports fans, it was won by Minsk resident Georgy Solovey. On the international stage, he is known under the pseudonym B-Boy Gera. A pupil of the Minsk school of breaking Fatality Dance, and now a student of the Belarusian State University of Physical Culture, in Dakar consistently surpassed the guys from Colombia, Denmark, Italy in the dance battles, lost to the Chinese in the semifinals, and in the fight for third place took revenge from the Pole, who lost in the preliminary round.

George Nightingale. Photo by NOC. In total, Belarusians won three bronze awards at YOI-2026. In addition to the Nightingale, distinguished swimmers Maxim Mashlyakevich and Polina Belyavskaya. “Africa welcomes, Dakar celebrates” was the theme of the opening ceremony. However, not all countries responded to this call with reciprocity. Because of concerns about the presence of minors in Africa, many countries have refused to send large delegations to Senegal. As a result, for example, the US team finished far from the top three medal standings. The top 3 included China, Japan and Russia, and in the top ten for the first time massively were African countries: Egypt, Ethiopia, Senegal, Kenya and South Africa.

Dakar sought to entice and introduced the usual disciplines in an unusual, beachy format. So, in South Ossetia, beach wrestling competitions were held (this, by the way, is a separate official discipline that combines elements of freestyle wrestling, judo and national types of wrestling on belts or sand). There was also beach handball, where, for example, the third places were taken by both boys and girls by athletes from Senegal, who will never be seen on classic handball courts.

Dakar-2026 probably showed in what direction the youth Olympics will develop further. But now there is a serious question: will the Summer Games be held in 2030? Back in May this year, IOC President Kirsty Coventry announced a pause in preparations: “We have to reconsider why we are doing this.” We realized that we had no common opinion.” The resumption of training has not yet been reported. Moreover, in November, Coventry noted that the conversion of participants to adult Olympics is only about 15 percent, and the organization still has not determined why this tournament is needed.