Facts and figures
26 sports, 201 events, 3524 athletes from 204 nations.
Most medals won (from a total of 98 teams) by: 1. China – 51 (30, 16, 5), 2. Russia – 43 (18, 14, 11), 3. South Korea – 19 (11, 4, 4), … 19. Lithuania – 4 (3, 0, 1).
About the Games
The decision to hold the Youth Olympics was made in 2007 during the IOC Session in Guatemala on the initiative of the then IOC President Jacques Rogge. This decision was strongly influenced by the success of the European Youth Olympic Festivals.
Youth Olympics feature athletes ages 14-18 in traditional Olympic sports. Like the Olympic Games, the Youth Olympic Games are held every four years, only in reverse order with the Winter Games held in leap years instead of the Summer Games.
The youth Olympic Games always feature sports or disciplines that are not included in the Olympic Games program. Often some of them later become an Olympic sport or event.
In Singapore a basketball 3×3 tournament took place, and later this discipline was included in the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics programme.
Lithuania in the Games
During the first-ever Youth Summer Olympic Games, Lithuania was represented by 24 athletes: 7 track and field athletes, 4 basketball players, 3 swimmers, 2 boxers, 2 pentathletes, 2 judokas, 1 gymnast, 1 rower, 1 canoeist, and 1 sailer.
Lithuanian athletes won 3 gold and 2 bronze medals. However, one of the bronze medals was not included in the Games’ medal table, as it was won by a mixed-NOC pentathlon team, where Lithuanian Lukas Kontrimavičius climbed on the victory podium together with Gulnaz Gubaydulina of Russia.
Three Lithuanian athletes became the champions of the first-ever Youth Olympic Games: Evaldas Petrauskas who later won a medal in the Olympic Games and Ričardas Kuncaitis, as well as rower Rolandas Maščinskas who later participated in the London 2012 Summer Olympics. Judoka Laura Naginskaitė won bronze.
4 track and field athletes placed among the top 8 athletes in their respective sports: Laura Gedminaitė (girls’ shot put, 4th place), Martynas Šedys (boys’ hammer throw, 5th place), Marius Simanavičius (boys’ javelin throw, 6th place) and Dovilė Dzindzaletaitė (girls’ triple jump, 9th place).
The Lithuanian basketball 3×3 team won 5th place. It consisted of Martynas Pauliukėnas, Mantas Mockevičius, Rokas Narkevičius, and Marius Užupis.
Robert Tvorogal was 7th in the boys’ horizontal bar event. He later participated in the Olympic Games and became the champion of the Minsk 2019 European Games.
Pentathlete Gintarė Venčkauskaitė who later participated in the Olympic Games won 6th place.
Swimmer Vaidotas Blažys was 8th in the 50 m breaststroke event finals. Urtė Kazakevičiūtė was 8th in 3 events: 50 m, 100 m and 200 m breaststroke.
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