IOC Launches Youth Olympics

The International Olympic Committee has approved plans to create a Youth
Olympics with the first Games to be held in 2010.

The Youth Olympics, to be launched in both the winter and summer format, will
be open to the 14 to 18-year old age bracket and will see some 3,500 athletes
competing in an array of Olympic sports.

The IOC voted to give the proposal the green light at its 119th Session
meeting in Guatemala City, backing the first international sports event that the
governing body has set up since forming the Winter Games over 80 years ago.

The summer Youth Olympics is expected to cost about £15m and the winter
version around £10m.

The Youth Olympics are expected to be based on the traditional Olympics, with
a winter event taking place two years after the first summer Games. The first
host city will be decided next February.

Judges, referees and delegation officials at the Youth Olympics will also be
young people.

As well as embracing youth, IOC president, Jacques Rogge, said that, with
young people failing to tune in to television coverage of the Olympics, the
governing body needs to change in order to survive.

‘Today we observe a widespread decline in physical activity and an increase
in obesity,’ he said. ‘One can speak of screen addiction. Multimedia, with its
elaborate graphics… is sometimes more appealing than sport.’