After the federations, the president of the Youth Olympic Games Organising Committee (Cojoj), Mamadou Diagna Ndiaye, on Saturday invited the diplomatic missions based in Senegal to lunch at the Committee’s headquarters in Keur Ayo. This came less than a week before the start of the Youth Olympic Games (YOG), which Senegal will have the honour of hosting, the first time they are held on African soil.

It was an opportunity for the head of the Cojoj to talk about Senegalese soft power.

“I know, a lunch with the president of the Cojoj a week before the Games, you were expecting a 50-slide PowerPoint on the buses and the beds in the Village. No. Not today. Today, I just wanted to talk to you about soft power. Without PowerPoint,” Diagna Ndiaye said.

Taking the land of Teranga as his example, he stressed that “for a long time, when people spoke about Senegal’s soft power, they cited three things: our stability, our Teranga, our diplomacy. That is true. It is our gold. With the YOG, I propose adding a fourth: our youth.”

He then recalled that in a fortnight, 2,700 young people from 200 countries will arrive in the country “to run, jump and swim. And above all, they will live together for 15 days in Diamniadio, Dakar and Saly.”

“Excellencies, you who practise diplomacy every day know how hard it is to get two countries that no longer speak to each other talking. Well, we are going to have young people from every country sleeping in the same building. And they will talk to each other. Not because they were told to. Because they are the same age and love the same sport,” Diagna Ndiaye said, stressing that “that is the soft power of the YOG. It is not written in press releases. It is lived in the Village canteen.”

For 15 days, according to the Cojoj president, “500 journalists from around the world will tell a different story from the one usually told about Africa. They will not report on crisis, coups or emigration. They will tell of an Africa that welcomes. An Africa that trains 400 young people from 30 countries to organise. An Africa that sets up a Legacy Observatory with the Ansd to seriously measure what the Games leave behind. It is a new narrative. And it is you, Excellencies, who will carry it back to your capitals.”

Mr Ndiaye also asked the ambassadors for “one very simple thing. During the Games, invite your young people. Your diasporas. Don’t stay at the Embassy. Come to Iba Mar Diop. Come and watch a breaking or skateboarding event. Sit next to a kid from Pikine. Let yourselves be won over.”

At the end of the Games, he urged, “keep telling this story. Tell your capitals: ‘I was in Dakar in 2026. I saw the Olympic rings light up in Africa for the first time. And it went well. Very well, in fact.’ That short word from your capitals is worth more to us than a gold medal.”

To conclude, Diagna Ndiaye made clear that “Dakar 2026” is not the business of the Cojoj, but rather the business of Senegal. “And Senegal is you too. You who represent it every day, you who sometimes love it more than we do ourselves.”

wdiallo@lequotidien.sn