Glasgow launches bid for the 2018 Youth Olympics

Senior reporter

Monday 19 September 2011

GLASGOW has launched an audacious bid to host the Youth Olympic Games in 2018, an event on the scale of the Commonwealth Games the city is hosting in three years.

WINNERS: Singapore staged the 2010 Youth Olympics, seeing off competition from Athens, Bangkok, Moscow and Turin. Pictures: Getty Images

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GERRY BRAIDEN

The city has begun communications with the British Olympic Association (BOA), registering its interest to become only the third city to stage the multi-sport event and asking the BOA to consider the proposal at its board meeting later this month.

Correspondence seen by The Herald also requests that the BOA make representations to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and makes reference to “ongoing dialogue” between city authorities and the BOA on hosting the Games.The letter, from the leadership of Glasgow City Council to BOA chief executive Andy Hunt, states: “We recognise that the BOA will be required to carry out a thorough review process and should your meeting agree in September to express an interest, this will give the opportunity for both Glasgow and other potential interested UK cities to develop their proposals further.”A source said: “It’s all at a very early stage. If the BOA want a UK city to host the event at that stage we start doing all the costings and detailed planning, including what the benefits to the city will be. That’s all a costly exercise, so you’d wait for things to be a bit more concrete before getting into that detail.“It’s certainly something we’ve been watching with interest and we had observers from Glasgow at Singapore. By 2018 we’ll have had the Commonwealth Games experience and the capacity to deliver something like this. It’s really down to it being the next big thing we could genuinely host.”The first Youth Olympic Games were held last year in Singapore, with the city seeing off competition from Athens, Bangkok, Moscow and Turin.The event, which has had around 200 countries involved, is staged every four years, consistent with the current Olympic Games format. It involves athletes between the ages of 14 and 18, with a maximum of 3530 participants and 480 officials, about 75% of the number involved in the Commonwealth Games.The Games were inaugurated in response to growing global concerns about childhood obesity and the diminishing participation of young people and schools in sport activities, and is billed as being as much about cultural education and exchange as it is about sport.Innsbruck will host the first Winter Youth Olympics in 2012.Nanjing, China was selected by the IOC over Poznan in Poland to be the host city of the 2014 Youth Olympics.A lot of the criteria may sit well with Glasgow’s bid, especially coming four years after the investment into the 2014 Games.The intention of the organisers is to allow for smaller cities to host a Youth Olympic Games. All events have to be within the same city and no new sports venues should be built. A Games village has to be the heart of the event for the athletes.No new or unique transportation systems are required and the track and field stadium for the opening and closing ceremonies must hold 10,000 people.The original estimated costs for running the Games were $30 million (£19m) for the Summer and $15m to $20m for Winter Games.The budgets for the final two bids for the inaugural Summer Games came in at $90m, much higher than the estimated costs. The cost of the first games in Singapore escalated to an estimated $284m.Sponsors have also been slow to sign on for the Youth Olympics, because of it being such a new initiative and corporations are not sure what level of exposure they will get.A spokesman for the British Olympic Association was not available for comment last night.

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Glasgow launches bid for the 2018 Youth Olympics

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