Dakar 2026: the essentials for following the Games now that they have started
The Youth Olympic Games opened on Saturday 31 October and run until 13 November. Confirmed numbers, venues, new features on the programme, the rules for Russia and the refugee team, and how to follow the events: the updated guide.
SNA – Multisport · Author profile · · Updated 31/10/2026 23:13 UTC
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With the delegations in place and the opening ceremony done, the numbers for Dakar 2026 are now settled. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) counts 2,655 athletes aged 14 to 17, representing 204 national Olympic committees plus a Refugee Olympic Team. This is the fourth summer edition of the Youth Olympics, after Singapore 2010, Nanjing 2014 and Buenos Aires 2018. Dakar’s edition, scheduled for 2022, was pushed back four years by the pandemic.
25 sports, 153 events, 945 medals
The programme has 25 competition sports and 153 medal events, which means 945 medals according to the organising committee’s media guide. The split is even: 73 women’s events, 73 men’s and seven mixed, a first for a summer Youth Olympics. Beach wrestling makes its debut, and ten so-called engagement sports are on offer for discovery, with no rankings.
Events are spread across eight venues. In Dakar: the Tour de l’Oeuf complex (swimming, 3x3 basketball, skateboarding, breaking, baseball5), the Iba Mar Diop complex (athletics, futsal, rugby sevens, taekwondo) and the Corniche Ouest (cycling, festival site and cauldron). In Diamniadio: the Abdoulaye Wade Stadium (ceremonies, archery), the Dakar Arena (badminton), the Dakar Expo Center (judo, fencing, gymnastics, table tennis, wushu, boxing) and the equestrian centre. In Saly, the western beach hosts beach volleyball, beach handball, beach wrestling, coastal rowing, triathlon and sailing. The athletes’ village is on the campus of Amadou Mahtar Mbow University in Diamniadio.
Russia, sport by sport
Russian athletes are taking part in an Olympic event after several years of exclusion, but each international federation decides. Judo and swimming have admitted them with flag and anthem; World Athletics is keeping its ban. No Russian will therefore compete in athletics.
The Refugee Olympic Team, for its part, is at a Youth Olympics for the first time: six athletes based in Kenya and Uganda, entered in athletics, judo and taekwondo. They marched second on Saturday, behind Greece.
Senegal with 136 athletes
The hosts have entered 136 athletes in 23 sports, having never sent more than nine to an Olympic Games. The country’s only Olympic medal remains Amadou Dia Ba’s silver in the 400m hurdles at Seoul 1988. Senegal won their first two matches on Saturday, in beach volleyball, and lost in table tennis and baseball5.
Six thousand volunteers, chosen from 23,000 applicants to the Jambaar26 programme, are working at the venues. More than 960,000 tickets have been released, including 300,000 solidarity tickets reserved for children, students and clubs, according to the IOC.
Where to follow the events
Competitions are streamed live on the Games’ official platform and video channel, and shown by rights-holding broadcasters in each country. SNA’s Dakar 2026 page offers the hour-by-hour schedule, official results refreshed every two minutes, the medal table and a page for each sport. SNA’s Dakar 2026 page
The first medals are expected on Sunday 1 November from 3pm GMT, in swimming, in the 200m backstroke, then in judo at the Dakar Expo Center. The closing ceremony is scheduled for Friday 13 November at the Abdoulaye Wade Stadium.