MANILA, Philippines - The Youth Olympic Games are a sporting event for young people, balancing sport, education and culture. These Games work as a catalyst in these fields throughout the Olympic Movement.
Held in Singapore this August, the main goal is to give the youngsters an education-based on Olympic values: friendship, fair play, non-violence and a rejection of any form of doping.
The Youth Olympic Games aims to bring together talented athletes, aged 14 to 18, from around the world to participate in high-level competitions; and also, alongside the sports element of the event, to run educational programs on the Olympic values, the benefits of sport for a healthy lifestyle, the social values sport can deliver and the dangers of doping and of training to excess and/or of inactivity.
Planned for 3,200 athletes and 800 officials this 2010, the vision of the Youth Olympic Games is to inspire young people around the world to participate in sport and adopt and live by the Olympic values.
All Olympic sports will be represented but with fewer events, and some new, youth-oriented sports might be introduced. The sports program will encompass all 26 sports on the program of the 2012 Summer Games, with a limited number of disciplines and events.
Included are: Aquatics, Archery, Athletics, Badminton, Basketball, Boxing Canoe-Kayak, Cycling, Equestrian, Fencing, Football, Gymnastics, Handball, Hockey, Judo, Modern Pentathlon, Rowing, Sailing, Table tennis, Taekwondo, Tennis, Triathlon, Volleyball, Weightlifting and Wrestling.
And always working hard to bringing the best sporting action from around the world, SOLARtv and Solar Sports will be showing the games from Aug. 14 to 26.
The delegates are: Patricia Llena (Weightlifting) who became the first Filipino athlete, in an individual event, to qualify in the 1st Youth Olympic Games (YOG) in Singapore after scooping up three bronze medals in the recent Asian Youth and Junior Weightlifting Championship in Tashkent, Uzbekistan; Jasmine Alkhaldi (Swimming), a precocious 16-year-old, who clocked 59.87 seconds in the girls’ 100-meter freestyle qualifying heat and made it to the semis at the Singapore Sports School Champions Way pool; Banjo Borja, eighth in the boys’ 200-m IM finals at 2:11.60, better than the qualifying time of 2:11.93 Korea’s Jung Won Yong, won the gold in 2:09.92.; and Francis Alcantara (Tennis) who, last year reached his highest junior ranking of World No. 14. He won the 2009 Australian Open Boy’s Doubles event with Hsieh Cheng-peng, 6-4, 6-2 in the final. He recently graduated in his secondary education at Xavier University - Ateneo de Cagayan High School.
Other RP delegates are the following: Jessie Lacuna, Dorothy Hong and Jose Gonzales, Swimming; and Gelo Alolino, Michael Pate, Kieffer Ravena, Kevin Ferrer and Ray Parks, basketball.