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Argentina takes up Youth Olympic mantel

Argentina takes up Youth Olympic mantel

The third Summer Youth Olympic Games will be hosted by the city of Buenos Aires in 2018, International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge announced earlier following a vote by the IOC members at an Extraordinary IOC Session in Lausanne.

Buenos Aires (Argentina) was elected ahead of Glasgow (Great Britain) and Medellín (Colombia).

Prior to the vote, the Candidate Cities each had 15 minutes to give a presentation to the Session, followed by questions.

Evaluation commission chair Claudia Bokel addressed the Session on behalf of the Commission.

“We had three excellent candidates from which to choose a host city today, each with the capability of staging memorable Youth Olympic Games in 2018,” said IOC president Rogge.

“I would like to congratulate Buenos Aires and their bid team for their dedication to and enthusiasm for the Youth Olympic Games project.

“I have no doubt they will build on the successes of Singapore 2010 and Nanjing 2014 to provide a platform on which the best young athletes from around the world can compete and learn about the Olympic values.”

The announcement was the culmination of a bidding process launched in September 2011, which originally included six Candidate Cities - the three other cities were Guadalajara (Mexico), Poznań (Poland) and Rotterdam (Netherlands).

After a thorough review of the Candidature Files and other relevant documentation submitted by five of the Candidate Cities (Poznań withdrew from the bidding process), the IOC Working Group, led by Claudia Bokel, presented a report to the IOC Executive Board (EB).

Based on this report, the EB announced Buenos Aires, Glasgow and Medellín as short listed candidates at a meeting in Lausanne in February 2013. 

The second Summer Youth Olympic Games will be held in Nanjing, China, from August 16th-28th 2014.