'Africa welcomes, Dakar celebrates': the Olympic flame burns on African soil for the first time

It took more than a century of Olympic history to get here. On Saturday night at Dakar's Abdoulaye Wade Stadium, Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye declared the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games open — the first Olympic event ever held in Africa. Some 2,655 athletes aged 14 to 17, from 204 national committees plus a Youth Refugee Olympic Team competing for the first time, will contest 153 medal events across 25 sports in Dakar, Diamniadio and Saly until 13 November. The opening ceremony put 1,115 performers on the field to tell Senegal's story in music, dance and wrestling. For the teenagers marching in, and the continent watching, the geography of sport just changed.