YOG can stop kids leaving sport - Rogge

The Youth Olympic Games (YOG) can provide a magnet to attract back youth who turn their back on sports when they reach adolescence, International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge said yesterday.

Rogge was visiting Singapore to assess preparations ahead of the inaugural August 14-26 Youth Olympics, a new IOC event for 14-18-year-olds featuring all the events from the regular Olympic Games.

The Belgian believes the YOG, his idea which was ratified at an IOC conference in 2007, needs to be "fun" to help retain a demographic who traditionally turn away from sports.

"I would think certainly the event in time will be a magnet for young people who want to participate in something like that," a relaxed Rogge told Reuters after holding a question and answer session.

"We see the attraction very much and the magnet effect of the traditional games... I think to a certain extent for the Youth Olympic Games we will have the same affect."

The 67-year-old, who competed in the yachting event in three consecutive Olympic Games from 1968, believed the emphasis of enjoying the event was key for the YOG rather than following the full Olympics model.

"It must be fun, it cannot be too serious, there should not be a gravity that you have at the traditional games that's for later. We want it (the YOG) to be fun, to be attractive."

However, Rogge, an orthopaedic surgeon by profession, said the athletes would be expected to go through the serious matter of doping testing during the YOG with more than 1,000 of the expected 3,500 competitors being tested.

Rogge, president since 2001, also thought the YOG would need time to perfect its model and find its feet in an already crowded sporting calendar.

"You have to be reasonable, it took 116 years since 1894 to have the organisational perfection, the audience and the crowd for the traditional Olympic Games, we will not need 116 years, maybe one or two editions," he said.