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Lausanne 2020 Youth Empowerment
Lausanne 2020 Youth Empowerment
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Olympic City: Lausanne
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Country: Switzerland
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Edition of the Games: Home of the IOC since 1915, 2020 Youth Olympic Winter Games
Games created for the youth, by the youth and with the youth
The Lausanne 2020 YOG has always had the ambition to promote youth and develop talent and has set its sights on actively involving them in the organisation of the Games. The youth empowerment programme was conceived as a key element of commitment, which is necessary to ensure popular success.
This first commitment was therefore the centrepiece of Lausanne 2020’s operation. This resulted in the unprecedented activation of academic partners at all levels of education, public and private, allowing for the involvement of the youth not only on the field of the Games (the athletes), but also outside, where thousands of schoolchildren and students participated in the actual making of the project.
Ultimately, the involvement of youth in and around the Games is widely cited as one of the key elements in the popular success of Lausanne 2020. It was one of the central elements of the Lausanne 2020 communication strategy, which aimed to show the importance of the YOG as a vehicle for education.
As Virginie Faivre, President of Lausanne 2020 confirms, “It is simply magnificent to see the Youth Olympic Games come to life thanks to the young people of our region. Since the beginning of the Lausanne 2020 adventure, over 130,000 students have been involved in the organization of the Games – Games created for the youth, by the youth and with the youth.”
Lausanne en Jeux! Festival: the youth at the heart of the city
Featuring 8 city sites, 300+ activities, 18 sport initiations, many food and beverage spots, and more, the Lausanne en Jeux! Festival brought the worlds of sport and culture together through an exciting programme of events along with sports initiations, workshops, exhibitions, concerts and shows, all of which were open to the general public. They took place in the heart of Lausanne, highlighted by a special set-up in the city centre, and in many cultural venues across Lausanne as well.
Among the highlights of the festival was BodyCity – an original show combining video mapping, music, dance and urban sports, which told the story of the relationship between the city and the younger generation. The show featured 50 young artists and athletes, highlighting local art schools and sport performances, performed on a unique 300m2 skatepark in the Place Centrale, converted into a stage for the occasion. The 5 performances of the show attracted more than 11’000 people.
A variety of workshops covered activities such as skiing, curling, skeleton, street art and video game design, with professional instructors delivering programmes tailor-made for young people. The wide range of exhibitions included a special display at the Lausanne Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts (MUDAC), which highlighted the cultural and social history of sports shoes. The eSpace Arlaud museum was transformed into a video games and digital fair play experience.
In total, the Lausanne en Jeux! Festival encompassed more than 300 events and brought together some 200’000 visitors/participants. Access to workshops, sports initiations, concerts and the BodyCity show were completely free of charge, offering a unique opportunity for young people to learn about winter sports and the connections between culture and sport.
The project was a means for Lausanne’s inhabitants and visitors to (re)discover the City and its many positive aspects, places, and opportunities. It was also a unifying project for the people involved in the conception, implementation and achievement such as City employees, students and volunteers.
As Grégoire Junod, Mayor of Lausanne said a few months after the Games, “The Olympic Capital is a city of sport and culture. The Youth Olympic Games were an opportunity to bring this together, resulting in this wonderful festival of sport and culture. Since then, the world has changed, but these Games have shown us that we need to live and enjoy shared emotions together.”
Winter YOG Athlete Ambassadors
As an integral element of previous YOGs, athlete ambassadors were present at venues, at ceremonies and around the village to mentor and enrich the overall experience for the young athletes. There were 14 Lausanne 2020 athlete ambassadors, including French Stanley Cup-winning goaltender Cristobal Huet, Swiss ski cross star Fanny Smith and French Nordic combined Olympic champion Jason Lamy-Chappuis. “The goal of Lausanne 2020 is to reveal talent, create synergies, involve thousands of young people and put together a true celebration,” said Virginie Faivre, President of the YOG Organising Committee.
To promote the Olympic spirit throughout Switzerland and neighbouring France, Lausanne 2020 brought together a pool of high-level Olympic athletes who hold and endorse Olympic values, and who inspire the next generation of athletes. During the Games, these athletes acted as Ambassadors and shared their experience with the young athletes. Lausanne 2020 and Paris 2024 collaborated on this very topic of youth engagement, with French school children invited to Lausanne’s Olympic Museum to meet and converse with Olympians.
Rooted in Lausanne 2020’s drive to foster a renewed ownership of the Olympic values among local youth, it’s fair to say that the idea of YOG “for youth, by youth and with youth” became a reality at this third edition of the Winter Youth Olympic Games.





Olympic Week – Lausanne
Lausanne Olympic Week
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Olympic City: Lausanne
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Olympic Capital: since 1994
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Edition of the Games: Youth Olympic Games 2020
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Programme: since 1981
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Periodicity: yearly
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Dedicated website: Olympic Museum
Olympic Week is an annual event in which a diverse range of sporting and cultural activities are offered to the youth of Lausanne during their October school holidays. All activities are completely free of charge and open to all participants.
The event combines sport, culture and education under the Olympic banner in an effort to encourage young people to get active, learn and engage with one another. Over the course of the week, over 5,000 youngsters try out new and fun sports while immersing themselves in the values of Olympism.
The event targets local children aged between 8 and 15 and offers introductions to over 30 different sports. A huge number of stakeholders are involved in the design and delivery of the event from start to finish. Among these are 150 team leaders, each of whom is ideally suited to introduce their relevant sport to the youngsters. These experts are supported by 120 volunteers drawn from the local population.
All activities are centrally located on the grounds of the Olympic Museum in Lausanne. Sporting activities take place in the Museum gardens, which are fully equipped with all the necessary installations and equipment needed for the various sports on offer. The cultural and educational activities are split amongst the gardens and inside the Museum buildings themselves. The Museum houses a significant collections of artistic, scholastic and anthropological works all of which are integrated into the programme.
The 5-day event was first introduced in 1981 by then-President of the International Olympic Committee, Juan Antonio Samaranch. Lausanne has always had a strong Olympic heritage with the IOC being based in the City since 1915. The City is also home to a number of other important international sporting organisations, including the Olympic Museum.







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