The Olympic flame has arrived in Senegal ahead of the Youth Olympic Games, marking the final countdown to the first Olympic sporting event to be held on African soil.
The flame was welcomed in Dakar on Saturday with music, dancing and a procession of 100 Senegalese women at the Place du Souvenir Africain, a waterfront plaza overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
More than 100 people gathered at the venue, surrounded by portraits of prominent figures from Africa and its diaspora, to celebrate the arrival of the flame ahead of the Games, scheduled for October 31 to November 13.
About 2,700 young athletes are expected to compete in 35 sports across Dakar and the nearby cities of Diamniadio and Saly.
The Youth Olympic Games, first held in Singapore in 2010, are a smaller version of the Olympic Games for athletes aged between 15 and 18.
The flame was carried by 100 Senegalese women known as “lingeer”, a Wolof title traditionally used for queens or women of royal status. The group included prominent figures from Senegal’s cultural, sporting and economic sectors.
Dressed in flowing orange and gold traditional outfits with yellow headwraps, the women carried the flame in a procession celebrating Senegalese women and the transmission of values between generations.
Gacirah Diagne, one of the lingeer, said the Games would serve as an inspiration to young people across Africa, which has the world’s youngest population.
Senegalese basketball legend Mame Maty Mbengue lit the Olympic cauldron during the ceremony, which was attended by International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe.
The flame left Athens, Greece, on Thursday after being lit using the sun’s rays and a parabolic mirror in keeping with Olympic tradition. It was formally handed over to Senegal at the historic Panathenaic Stadium.
From Monday, the flame will embark on a 3,600-kilometre journey across Senegal, passing through all 14 regions and being carried by more than 400 Senegalese torchbearers.
It will return to Dakar ahead of the official opening ceremony of the Youth Olympic Games.
