Youth Olympic Games from 2010.

During the two days session of the Executive Board of the IOC which started two days ago in Beijing, the IOC Executive Board unanimously welcomed the idea to organise new Olympic sports event – Youth Olympic Games (YOG).

This means that the concept of this event will be put forward for consideration by the IOC Session in Guatemala City in July. The Summer and Winter Youth Games would alternate every four years, the Summer events would be staged in the years of the Olympic Winter Games and vice versa.

The first edition of Summer YOG is envisaged for 2010., same year as Winter Olympic Games in Vankuver. Summer YOU will last for 10 days, and Winter YOG 7.

Estimates around participant numbers range from 3,000 for the Summer YOG and 1,000 for the winter counterpart. Opinion of the members of the Executive Board is that the organisational effort for a city to host the YOG would be significantly lower for the Olympic Games.

However the details of the concept still need to be defined in close cooperation with the members of the Olympic Movement. Experience can be gathered from events like the European and Australian Youth Olympic Festivals. (To remind, next European Festival will be held in Belgrade, in June this year.)

"The purpose of the YOG is to complement the Olympic Games and “not to create mini Games,” explained Jacques Rogge, President of the IOC, who is, at the same time, the President of the Executive Board. They would have a different character, he said.

Target group of athletes are youngsters aged between 14 and 18. As it was announced in Beijing, sports events would be carefully chosen to protect the health of the young athletes. The YOG would be a demonstration of the IOC’s commitment to young people by providing for them an event of their own in the spirit of the Olympic Games.

Jacques Rogge also emphasised that the YOG would serve, alongside providing a special event for youth competition, to let young people understand the dangers of doping in sport, the risks associated with extremes – such as a sedentary lifestyle or overtraining – the benefits of a having a balanced diet and the advantages of finding a healthy balance between sport and other social and educational activities. Young people who live the YOG experience would either go on to become future Olympians, or simply ambassadors in society for sport and Olympic values, having learnt their relevance and meaning today.

Executive Board in Beijing also brought the decision about setting up of "voluntary joint group of creative agencies", whose members are already Havas, Leo Burnet, United and Saatchi & Saatchi, IOC's associates in the field of advertising and communication campaigns. Agency will work on multy-dimensional campaign which will start in the last quarter of this year. Its goal is to promote the Olympic values – unity, friendship and respect, to young people all over the World.