IOC invites medal designs for Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games

Creatives and Olympic fans now have the chance to leave their mark on Olympic history.

This follows the opening of a global call to shape one of the most meaningful symbols of the Games by designing the obverse side of the medal for the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games (YOG).

The selected design will feature on the medals awarded to athletes who reach the podium in Senegal. The submissions, which started on September 2 through a dedicated platform on Olympics.com will end on October 7.

The designer of the obverse of the Gangwon 2024 medal, Dante Akira Uwai, explained the impact that his participation in 2024 had on his life: “A lot has changed since Gangwon. Many opportunities have opened up to me thanks to the medal design competition, especially for my career. But I think the most important change was actually internal. It was realising the transformative power of both art and sport.”

A jury featuring International Olympic Committee (IOC) Dakar 2026 Coordination Commission chairman Humphrey Kayange OLY, Gangwon 2024 medal design competition winner Dante Akira Uwai, IOC Young Leaders Peniamina Percival OLY and Pragnya Mohan, IOC Young Reporters Yun Su Park and Yann Durand, and Dakar 2026 ambassador Elzo Jamdong will review applications, rank designs and share their recommendation with the IOC Executive Board for validation.

The reverse of the medal will be developed by the Dakar 2026 Organising Committee and will incorporate Senegalese cultural elements alongside the YOG emblem.

“The transformative power of both art and sport”

The opportunity to design the obverse of the medal was first introduced for the Singapore 2010 YOG, when Japan’s Setsuko Fukuzawa created the “Yes Youth Can” design. Since then, young designers from Slovakia, Romania, Indonesia, New Zealand and Brazil have seen their creations presented to athletes on the YOG podium.

For Gangwon 2024, more than 3,000 entries from 120 countries were submitted, with Brazilian artist and architect Dante Akira Uwai selected for his design, “A Sparkling Future”.

“One thing that happened to me a lot when designing my medal was to visualise the athlete receiving it,” said Uwai. “What do I want them to feel? What do I want them to see? And when they are older and full of stories to tell, what memories should the medal bring back when they see it hanging on the wall?”

Looking back on Gangwon 2024, he added: “I think the most impactful memory was seeing the medal being awarded to an athlete for the very first time. I had imagined that scene for a whole year, and when it finally happened, it was a very, very emotional moment.”

The Dakar 2026 YOG will take place over two weeks from 31 October, bringing together the world’s best young athletes up to the age of 17. The Games will be held across three host.