It’s come down to 9 potential cities that will be hosting the first ever Youth Olympic Games that will supposedly attract 3,500 athletes between the ages of 14-18, and bring relevancy and cool-factor back to the anachronistic International Olympic Committee (IOC) by 2010. The potential host cities that submitted candidacy by the October 26th deadline, include Athens, Greece, Bangkok, Thailand, Debrecen, Hungary, Guatemala City, Guatemala, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Moscow, Russia, Poznan, Poland, Singapore, Singapore, and Turin, Italy. These cities will be analyzed by a panel representing the Olympic Movement, with a final announcement for the host city to be announced this month on the 19th.
What’s interesting about this, however, is that the sports to be chosen for the Youth Olympic Games must be from the stable of 26 sports that are to appear in to 2012 Games in London. As we’ve written about previously, skateboarding is on that potential list, as well as BMX. However, since both sports, which rank high in our Global Youth Culture Studies, may be potential sports within the real Olympic Games in London 2 years later, and of course include athletes within the 14-18-year-old age range, it remains to be seen how this will dilute the real Olympics if the first time these popular sports appear is during the Youth Games and potentially with the same athletes.
It appears that the IOC may not have thought this through.
The Youth Olympic Games concept started this year when the IOC, in its attempts to reach a younger demographic and be more relevant in the future, sought out ways to increase its appeal to global youth culture. One brilliant idea was the creation of the supposedly youthful and hip 2012 logo for the London Games, which has not only been blasted globally for it’s bad design, but has been removed from some sites for causing seizures. The other concept was to possibly introduce skateboarding into the 2012 Games; and the final one, was the launch of the Youth Olympic Games for 14-18-year-olds. However, the IOC doesn’t yet “recognize” any skateboarding organizations and have turned to the International Cycling Union (UCI) to introduce the sport to the Games. The way this whole process works is that skateboarding has to first be umbrella-ed under a sport that the IOC does “recognize” from which that organization can then make a formal proposal to the IOC to include it into the Games. This process can take years, often includes frustration on the part of the athletes and industry trying to get the sport into the Games, not to mention the tension created from having two very distinct sporting lifestyles try to get along as they are pre-packaged together for the sake of “recognition” by the Olympics. Look at the snowboarding and skiing relationship as a reference.
London’s organizing committee of course is keen to have skateboarding on board and is pushing hard knowing that it will increase their cred-factor and global audiences. They even have a proposed location in the Olympic Park veladrome. And the UCI is keen to get skateboarding within their fold which will not only bolster cycling, but bring in money for their organization off the backs of skateboarding, thanks to their brethren with tiny wheels. However, if this popular sport first appears in the Youth Games, in say, a chosen city of Debrecen, Hungary, it will most certainly pop the bubble for London with the sport appearing in their big-daddy Olympics 2 years later.
While of course it’s important to know which city will host said Youth Olympic Games, what may be far more important is first to figure out what sports are going to be in the Youth version. Then, it might make more sense what city to host it in—one with perhaps a history of supporting “youthful” sports. Out of this list, only about 1 (Moscow) has such a reputation, and ironically, no city like say, San Diego or Los Angeles or Cleveland or Mexico City, that have hosted youth-oriented X Games events have even thrown their names into the pot. Which says something.
Finally, in other Olympic news, it sounds like Coca-Cola is doing a good thing: They’ve donated 2 million dollars to the Hellenic Olympic Committee towards restoring the ancient site of Olympia in Greece and the nearby forest which was struck by wildfire this summer. Coca-Cola is the longest running sponsor of the Olympics. Odds-on that this title goes to Mountain Dew for the Youth version.
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