By David Owen
July 9 – Buenos Aires has won the right to host the 2018 Youth Olympic Games beating Medellín and Glasgow, in a vote held in the Swiss city of Lausanne.
The Argentinian capital beat its Colombian rival 49-39 after Glasgow was eliminated in the first round. It will be the third Summer Youth Games in all and the first to be staged outside Asia. Singapore hosted the inaugural event in 2010, with the first renewal earmarked for Nanjing next year.
Football, in particular Argentine icon Lionel Messi, was given a prominent place in the closing video included in the city’s final 15-minute presentation, which also featured excerpts from the well-known song ‘Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina’.
Neither Sepp Blatter, the FIFA President, nor Issa Hayatou, the African football leader, were there to hum along, or to exercise their votes as International Olympic Committee (IOC) members. The names of both men were on the list of those “excused” from the extraordinary Session.
But in the end, their absence made no difference and the result was another triumph for Mike Lee, the British sporting bid guru, who advised Qatar’s successful 2022 World Cup bid. “It was the right bid for the city at this time,” Lee said afterwards.
The country – which will host the key IOC Session in September at which the ninth IOC President will be chosen – is widely expected to use the Youth Games as a stepping-stone for other mega-events. Rumours of a joint Argentina-Uruguay bid for the centenary 2030 World Cup have been rife for some time, even before Argentine FA president Julio Grondona’s recent comments, and a rugby World Cup bid also looks possible.
Some 3,500 athletes, aged between 14 and 18, took part in the first Youth Olympics three years ago. The boys’ and girls’ football competitions were each contested by six teams, one from each confederation. Bolivia won the boys’ tournament with some ease, while the Chilean girls edged out Equatorial Guinea in a penalty shootout, making it a double for South America.