Olympic flame reaches Senegal ahead of historic African games
The Olympic flame arrived in Dakar on Saturday, greeted by music and dance as Senegal prepares to host the first Olympic Games ever held on African soil.
More than a hundred people gathered at the Place du Souvenir Africain, facing the Atlantic Ocean, to welcome the flame for the Youth Olympic Games, set to run from October 31 to November 13. Around 2,700 young athletes aged 15 to 18 will compete in 35 sports across Dakar, Diamniadio, and Saly.
The flame was carried by about a hundred Senegalese women known as “lingeer” a Wolof term for queens or women of royal blood. Drawn from cultural, sporting, and economic circles, they marched in long orange and gold traditional outfits with yellow headscarves, in a procession celebrating intergenerational transmission and the role of Senegalese women.
“These Games will inspire young people across Africa,” said Gacirah Diagne, one of the flame bearers.
Basketball legend Mame Maty Mbengue lit the Olympic cauldron, alongside International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry.
Created in 2010 in Singapore, the Youth Olympic Games are a youth-oriented version of the traditional Olympics.
The flame had left Athens on Thursday, lit by the sun’s rays via a parabolic mirror before being officially handed to Senegal at the Panathenaic Stadium.
Starting Monday, it will travel nearly 3,600 kilometers across the country, carried by more than 400 runners through Senegal’s 14 regions before returning to Dakar for the opening ceremony.
