Singapore set for inaugural Youth Olympic Games

An estimated 5,000 teenage athletes and officials are set to participate in the inaugural Youth Olympic Games to be held in Singapore from 14th to 16th August.

A total of 26 sports will be contested by competitors aged between 14 and 18 in what's seen as a possible stepping-stone to the 2012 London and 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

The International Olympic Committee created the new event as a means for drawing young people back to the playing fields and away from computer and TV screens, and hopefully aim at becoming "real Olympians".

The Youth Olympics' mission is "to inspire young people around the world to participate in sport and live by the Olympic values".

Singapore defeated Moscow by 53 votes to 44 to be the first Youth Olympics venue, and apart from the sports has devised an accompanying list of cultural and educational events for the youngsters, many of whom will be making their first overseas trip.

The Youth Summer Games will be held every four years, the second scheduled for 2014 in the Chinese city of Nanjing while the inaugural Youth Winter Olympics will be at Innsbruck, Austria, in 2012.

Around 3,500 athletes from up to 170 countries will be participating in the Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games (Singapore 2010).

Australia will send the maximum of 100 athletes with Nick Green, a member of the ‘oarsome foursome’ which won two Olympic rowing gold-medals, as Chef-de-Mission.

Competitors will be in all sports except fencing, football, judo, taekwondo, tennis and volleyball.

38 Australian horses (a mix of thoroughbreds and those bred to be show jumpers) are also travelling to the event.

At Singapore Turf Club's equestrian set up near Kranji racecourse, the four-day program is for individual show-jumping followed by a teams event representing five continents.

The IOC decreed that no new stadiums should have to be built for the Youth Olympics, but temporary structures were allowed.

With five million residents crammed into a 700 kilometre2 island, Singapore is now ablaze with banners and posters announcing its biggest international sporting event, bigger than the three South East Asian Games it has hosted.

The 18 Games venues are located all over the island; the opening and closing ceremonies on 14th and 26th August will be at the Marina Bay Floating Platform, opened in 2007 as a venue for National Day events, music and cultural performances.

The opening will feature a colourful 110-minute show depicting the story of Singapore and the aspirations of young athletes - followed by fireworks.

The platform, with seats for 25,000 spectators, is close by the newly opened Marina Bay Sands resort with its distinctive three 55-storey towers and a rooftop park in the shape of a boat.

The Games will follow a modified Olympics schedule, with no synchronised swimming, no track cycling, no canoeing-slalom, softball or baseball, and other events shortened.

Athletics will be at Bishan Stadium in central Singapore while the adjoining Bishan Sports Hall is the venue for artistic and rhythmic gymnastics plus trampolining.

Swimming is set for the two 50metre-pool Singapore Sports School which opened in 2004 to cater for students between 13 and 17 who have a flair for various sports.

Elsewhere in the school will be the shooting (boys' and girls' air pistol and air rifles) and the Modern Pentathlon.

Cycling based at the Tampines Bike Track will have a new format: a teams event combining BMX, cross-country, road time trial and road race.

The 128 riders will be in 32 national teams of three boys and one girl - as is the case in several other events, cyclists must be born between 1st January 1992 and 31st December 1993.

The International Convention Centre will host boxing, wrestling, fencing, handball, judo and taekwando while weightlifting and volleyball will be at the Toa Payok Sports Hall.

Basketball will be a smaller ‘three-on-three’ version at an outdoor youth sports park established in 2004 to meet the needs of young Singaporeans where space to play is restricted among the towering business and apartment blocks.

This venue will also feature in the Games' cultural and educational program for the athletes.

The triathlon will be contested in East Coast Park, Singapore's largest and most popular beach-park.

Close by the park, the National Sailing Centre is the venue for the four sailing events - boys' and girls' windsurfing and solo dinghies.

Tennis is set for the Kallang Tennis Centre in the south east of the island, with temporary seating for 2000.

Near the tennis venue is Kallang Field, normally the centre for cricket and softball in Singapore but which will be set up for archery for the Games.

Each country has been allowed one entry for boys and one for girls in any one of the team sports of football, hockey, handball and volleyball.

Australia, with an impressive record in Olympic Games hockey, chose that sport for the boys in the tournament to be played at the Sangken Hockey Centre in one of Singapore's newer suburbs.

For the girls it's handball at the Convention Centre while rowing, canoeing and kayaking races will be at the recently opened Marina Reservoir near the floating platform.

Badminton and table tennis are scheduled for the Singapore Indoor Stadium, where Lleyton Hewitt has played tennis and where pop stars such as Elton John and Janet Jackson have performed.

Athletes and team officials will be housed in the Youth Olympics Village, which the organisers describe as "comfortable but not lavish" accommodation and services on the campus of the Nanyang Technological University.

The dining hall will present a spread of up to 60 international dishes per day on the buffet table, representing European, Asian, Asian and Oceania cuisines.

In the village are training facilities and an Internet centre, and the Village Square has a world culture pavilion exhibiting the histories and cultures of the countries taking part in the Games.

There will also be musical concerts in the square and also the chance for the young athletes to meet and chat with senior Olympic champions who are being brought to Singapore for the Games as role models and ambassadors.

They include the world's fastest man, Beijing Olympic sprinting champion and world record-holder Usain Bolt of Jamaica, American multi-gold-medallist swimmer Michael Phelps and Russian pole-vault title-holder Yelena Isinbayeva.

The Australian Olympians will be basketballers Andrew Gaze and Michele Timms, hockey's Andrew Smith and taekwando's Daniel Trenton, while Young Ambassadors on the list include sailing gold medallist Elise Rechichi.

Meanwhile, Australian singer Jessica Mauboy will be Oceania's representative as five singers from each continent who will present a new inspirational Olympic theme song titled Everyone during the Singapore 2010 opening ceremony.
AAP

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12th February 2010 - NANJING AWARDED 2014 YOUTH OLYMPICS

7th July 2009 - TECHNOGYM TO SUPPLY SINGAPORE YOUTH OLYMPICS

2nd April 2009 - POPULOUS - DRAWING PEOPLE TOGETHER

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