2020 Winter Youth Olympics

The 2020 Winter Youth Olympic Games (Olympische Jugend-Winterspiele 2020; Jeux olympiques de la jeunesse d'hiver de 2020; Giochi olimpici giovanili invernali del 2020; Gieus olimpics da giuvenils d'enviern 2020), officially known as the III Winter Youth Olympic Games and commonly known as Lausanne 2020 (Italian and Romansh: Losanna 2020), were the third edition of the Winter Youth Olympics; a major international multi-sport event and cultural festival for teenagers that was held in Lausanne, Switzerland, the home of the International Olympic Committee, between 9 and 22 January 2020.

Bidding process
The bidding calendar was announced by the IOC on 6 June 2013, with the application deadline set for 28 November 2013. Lausanne (Switzerland) and Brașov (Romania) were only two cities that submitted the bids and were selected as the final candidates.

Host city selection
The IOC voted to select the host city of the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics on 31 July 2015 at the 128th IOC Session at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Lausanne was selected by 71 votes to 10, as it got at least 41 votes needed for a majority.

Lausanne

 * Vaudoise Aréna – Opening and closing ceremonies, Ice hockey finals
 * CIG de Malley – Figure skating, Short Track
 * Lausanne campus – Olympic village
 * Le Flon – Medal ceremonies

Vallée de Joux

 * Prémanon, France – Ski jumping, Biathlon, Nordic Combined
 * Le Brassus – Cross-country Skiing

Alps

 * Leysin – Ski Freestyle (Halfpipe, Slopestyle), Snowboard (Halfpipe, Slopestyle)
 * Les Diablerets – Alpine skiing
 * Villars-sur-Ollon – Ski Cross, Snowboard Cross, Ski Mountaineering
 * Champéry, Valais – Curling
 * St. Moritz, Graubünden – Speed skating, Bobsleigh, Skeleton, Luge, Medal ceremonies

Sports
The Youth Olympic Games featured 8 sports and 16 disciplines. 81 events took place which included 13 mixed team events (NOCs), 34 men's events, and 34 women's events. Ski mountaineering and women's Nordic combined was featured for the first time in an Olympic event. A mixed-NOC 3-on-3 ice hockey tournament and a women's doubles event in luge were also contested for the first time. •

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Participating National Olympic Committees
A total of 1,788 athletes from 79 nations qualified, the most for any edition of a Winter Youth Olympics. 12 NOCs made their Winter Youth Olympics debuts: Albania, Azerbaijan, Ecuador, Haiti, Hong Kong, Kosovo, Pakistan, Qatar, Singapore, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, and Turkmenistan. Qatar and Turkmenistan have never competed at the Winter Olympics and Haiti competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Calendar

 * All dates are CET (UTC+1)



Opening ceremony
The opening ceremony of the 2020 Winter Youth Olympic Games took place on the evening of Thursday 9 January 2020 at the Vaudoise Aréna, in Lausanne.

Closing ceremony
The closing ceremony of the 2020 Winter Youth Olympic Games took place on the evening of Thursday 22 January 2020 at the Medals Plaza Lausanne. The ceremony featured the flag handover from mayor of Lausanne Grégoire Junod to IOC President Thomas Bach and to the governor of Gangwon Choi Moon-soon as host of the 2024 Winter Youth Olympics and the extinguishing of the Youth Olympic flame.

Mascot
Yodli the official mascot was unveiled on 8 January 2019 at CIG de Malley before the match between Lausanne HC and HC Davos. Yodli is inspired by a combination of a cow, a Saint Bernard dog, and a goat, and was created by ERACOM. Blue represents the Swiss lakes.

Colours
Magenta, Sky Blue

Tickets
It was announced that all events apart from the opening ceremony would be free to watch in January 2020.

Media coverage

 * Europe - Eurosport
 * 🇸🇬 Singapore - Mediacorp (delay)
 * 🇹🇭 Thailand – Plan B
 * 🇲🇾 Malaysia - Unifi TV
 * 🇺🇸 United States - Olympic Channel
 * 🇲🇽 Mexico - Marca Claro (online), TUDN (Delay)
 * 🇬🇧 United Kingdom - BBC iPlayer (online)