Dakar 2026: A Cultural Showcase

The first Olympic sporting event to be held on the African continent, the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games are also an opportunity to highlight a wealth of expertise and a cultural and historical heritage still largely unknown to the world.

In the streets of Dakar, Senegal’s bustling capital, the history of the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) is being written. Everywhere, it is spreading softly, like the whisper of a griot at the start of a folk tale.

This is the first time the YOG will be held in Africa. Day by day, this legend made up of sporting feats, discoveries and the promotion of local cultures is winning over the hearts and minds of the city, the nation and even the continent. It is becoming a reality, often through word of mouth, and sometimes through symbolic displays or high-profile events. In these moments, there is a mood of growing excitement and anticipation.

Taking place from 31 October to 13 November 2026 across the cities of Dakar, Saly and Diamniadio, the event is fuelling more curiosity and creative enthusiasm with each passing day. While today, “Africa welcomes, Dakar celebrates” (“Afrig Dalal, Ndakaaru Jëmël” in Wolof), to quote the official motto of Dakar 2026, Dakar has long been a source of inspiration, innovation and fascination. Those who have set foot on the peninsula know this already. But the YOG are an opportunity to demonstrate this to the rest of the world. So alongside the sporting action, culture is also part of the YOG.

“The Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games are not merely an African first in sporting terms – they are a historic first in the fullest sense, almost a civilisational one,” says Mamadou Diagna Ndiaye, President of both the Senegalese National Olympic and Sports Committee (SNOSC) and the Dakar 2026 Organising Committee.

Across the generations 

On a cool May night in Dakar, as gusts of Saharan dust blow onto faded walls, Souleymane Diop makes the trip to the brand-new Train Express Régional (TER) station in the Colobane district. There is a rumour doing the rounds in the city about a work of art on display right in the heart of Dakar. “It’s definitely there,” confirms Diop, a shopkeeper who owns a stall at the nearby Soumbédioune craft market – flashing a selfie.

Before him stands a huge, brightly coloured mural measuring nearly seven metres by four. Bearing the YOG logo, “Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games”, it features portraits of three female Senegalese athletes. “It’s really beautiful,” comments Diop, along with other curious onlookers.

At the base of the sky-blue wall, the first face to emerge is that of the iconic smiling Julie Marie Gomis, the country’s first female Olympian in 1976, who competed in the women’s 100m hurdles. Next comes the determined expression of the canoeist Combé Seck, 30. An African canoe sprint champion in 2025, she was one of Senegal’s two flag-bearers at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. And last, at the top, is the youthful, hope-filled face of 15-year-old Tening Faye, bronze medallist in her category at the 2025 World Taekwondo Cadet Championships in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, completing this panorama of three generations of Senegalese athletes.

“It’s brilliant! I didn’t know all this was happening – a friend told me about it and I wanted to see for myself,” explains Diop. “It’s a good idea to create a buzz leading up to the event. It makes people want to find out more, to go further.”

The artwork appeared on the wall of the capital’s busiest TER station in March. It certainly attracts attention in the hectic streets of Dakar, where the bright yellow and blue of express coaches and old taxis are already a ubiquitous sight. “The vibrant colours and the eye-catching background patterns immediately convey that this welcome is special to Senegal and more widely to the Sahel and Africa,” explains Dieynaba Sidibe, alias Zeinixx, a graffiti artist and co-creator of the mural.

The 35-year-old artist, the first ever female Senegalese graffiti artist, has once again broken new ground. She spearheaded the initiative to give a voice to the capital’s walls as part of the project known as Yeesal in Wolof, which aims to place urban art at the heart of the YOG. For the occasion, Dakar and its working-class suburbs, including Rufisque and Bargny, as well as Diamniadio and Saly, is becoming an open-air gallery. In total, 43 murals measuring seven metres by four metres and designed by 43 graffiti artists will be painted in the coming weeks – mainly at train stations.

“The Yeesal project is a way of giving many young people the opportunity to express themselves and bring their artistic contributions to the YOG,” states Serigne Mansour Fall, better known as Mad Zoo, Artistic Director of the Yeesal project and himself a graffiti artist. “These aren’t just decorative murals – we’re talking about engaging murals that put the continent’s sporting successes into perspective.”

“A true symbol of our culture”

The 43 graffiti artists, selected over the past few months through a call for proposals, have already submitted designs on the themes of sporting legacy, the Olympic values – excellence, respect and friendship – and cultural diversity. Like Zeinixx’s, which depicts three generations of Senegalese sportswomen, most of the murals will highlight athletes’ sometimes forgotten or overlooked successes. “Beyond sport, the idea is also to promote street art, to give young artists the chance to take part in the YOG and showcase their talent, and potentially to launch careers,” says Fall.

In a country like Senegal, where graffiti is not strictly forbidden but rather “tolerated”, the official involvement in such a street art project feels like “a continuation of an art form that has always served society”, believes Zeinixx. In this West African country, graffiti emerged from the “Set Setal” movement in the early 1990s, when thousands of young people commandeered the walls of their neighbourhoods to publicise major clean-up operations – painting murals to inform the public about hygiene and public health issues.

All the more so because, thanks to these YOG-themed murals that will spring up across Senegalese neighbourhoods, graffiti’s primary purpose – education through art – is being brought back into the spotlight.

“The more murals we create, the more people will have access to information about the YOG event, the history of sport and about our heroes, and the greater the enthusiasm will be,” believes Mad Zoo. “It was essential for the organisers to grasp the importance of our cultural expression – of which graffiti is a part – to spark public interest and ensure that we make these Games something by us and for us, and not just when it comes to sport.”

“A positive light”

Inspired by the Yeesal project, numerous initiatives bringing together art and sport have been launched across the whole of Senegal over the past two years, most often through calls for proposals or competitions.

One of the most emblematic was the competition to design the Dakar 2026 mascot. Organised in late 2025, the event was run directly by Senegal’s Ministry of Education and involved 500 pupils from 41 schools across 16 regions throughout the country. After three selection rounds, the chosen winner was the design by Ndeye Mariama Diop, a 16-year-old schoolgirl from Saint-Louis – the capital of the Saint-Louis region, on the border with Mauritania.

Passionate about drawing since childhood, particularly manga, the schoolgirl took inspiration from her daily life to root the character “both in Senegalese traditions and in modernity”, she tells Olympic Review. The lion cub named Ayo (“joy” in Yoruba – a language widely spoken in West Africa) has a smiling face.

“I told myself that the character should be funny rather than serious, so that children would love him and he’d bring joy wherever he went,” explains Diop. Ayo also wears a tengaade (the traditional conical fibre hat of the Fulani, a community with a strong presence in West Africa) and a football shirt, the sport being very popular with young people.

“I wanted to blend traditional and contemporary clothing and, above all, with a view to inclusion, to give a nod to the talibés [street children traditionally entrusted by their families to Quranic schools for their religious education], who are usually dressed in cheap shirts found on market stalls across the country,” she explains with disconcerting maturity. “I came up with the idea for this mascot as an opportunity to have a fictional character to represent Senegal across the world in a positive light.” A symbol of unity ahead of the start of the YOG, the mascot was even presented to Bassirou Diomaye Faye, the President of the Republic.

“The Dakar 2026 YOG will be a moment of glory for Senegal and for Africa… With six months to go before the opening of the Games, our country is counting on the involvement of the arts and culture sector to rise to this national challenge and continentwide endeavour,” declared the head of state last April.

“A force on the international stage”

From an economic, social and cultural perspective, the YOG represent a historic milestone for this country with a population of around 18 million.

“The YOG, like all international events, are a showcase for expertise and for institutional and private stakeholders, providing an opportunity to show the entire world what Senegal is all about in every respect,” underlines Jean-Baptiste Guégan, a specialist in the geopolitics of sport and a lecturer on the history and geopolitics of African sport at Sciences Po in Paris.

“In this approach, there is an element of public diplomacy, and cultural diplomacy in particular, which some might be tempted to reduce to ‘soft power’, but it goes far beyond that. Through this event, Dakar is positioning itself as a force on the continental, regional and international stage.”

Building on the narrative of these YOG with initiatives throughout Senegal’s young society, the lion cub Ayo, who has come to life as a giant cuddly toy, is touring the country. As a vehicle for information about the historic event, Ayo is spreading the message of the Games, much like the graffiti artists of the Yeesal project. And the choice of locations highlights Senegal’s historical and cultural heritage.

In early March, the icon set foot on the island of Gorée, a global symbol of the transatlantic slave trade. After a brief visit to the pupils of the prestigious Mariama Bâ girls’ school, named after the renowned Senegalese writer, the lion cub set off to explore the House of Slaves and the Gate of No Return, from where slaves were shipped off to the colonies. The site, steeped in emotion and history, will be a must-see for visitors during the YOG. Ayo has led the way.

In the same vein as the mascot design competition, the anthem that will ring out in the arenas that usually stage wrestling (the hugely popular national sport), and some of which have been converted to host other events, on the beaches bordering the Atlantic and in the brand-new stadiums, has been unveiled.

The music that will provide the soundtrack for the two weeks of competition is “Terenga”, the official song of the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games composed by the Senegalese artist Mamy Mbaye. The song was selected  through a project entitled “Wonéel sa bop” in Wolof (“Reveal Yourself”) that has mobilised a large part of the country’s music industry – from performers to instrumentalists, and from beatmakers to producers and composers. The contest was an opportunity to demonstrate to the world the strength of Senegal’s music culture, born of griot songs and now widely popularised by mbalax, whose “king” Youssou N’Dour was a key member of the jury.

For the medal production and the design of the Senegalese athletes’ outfits, calls for proposals from young designers and artisans from across the country have, once again, been prioritised.

“There’s a lot going on – it’s a very stimulating environment for creativity,” says Mouhamadou El Amine Diallo, founder of the fashion brand Kamal Raw. The designer was a participant in a catwalk show last November during the fourth edition of Dakar en Jeux, an annual cultural and sporting festival launched in 2022 with the aim of enhancing the technical aspects of the YOG’s organisation and boosting public enthusiasm and excitement.

“Africa is on the move”

While the Dakar 2026 YOG are intended to provide a platform for the athletes of tomorrow, the SNOSC is keen to make sure that the event has the same impact on the rest of the country’s young people.

“In all previous editions, beyond sport, the cultural dimension has been one of the most important aspects,” states Fanta Diallo, Director of Engagement and Mobilisation at the Dakar 2026 Organising Committee. “We were keen to follow this principle, and since we are talking about the Youth Olympic Games, it was even more important to open up opportunities for young people to display their creativity and ensure that they too can play their part.”

Committed to ensuring that these Games serve as a social and educational catalyst, the SNOSC has also launched a certification scheme to enable a wide range of organisations, institutions, private-sector players and other associations to be involved in the YOG programme across Senegal – and demand is growing. “On condition that they convey the Olympic values, namely excellence, respect and friendship, but also offer opportunities, particularly learning opportunities, to young people,” explains Diallo.

During the two weeks of celebrations, an array of festivals, concerts, street performances, catwalk shows and other public events are planned near the competition venues and in the host cities of Dakar, Diamniadio and Saly.

Beyond sport, the YOG are also an opportunity to demonstrate Senegal’s ability to host a major international event, supported by an entire continent. This is an uplifting narrative at a time when Africa is rarely viewed in a positive light.

This article originally appeared on IOC.