DAKAR: The fourth Youth Olympic Games, hosted in Dakar from Oct. 31, concluded on Friday evening in the Senegalese capital.
In the presence of Prince Fahd bin Jalawi bin Abdulaziz bin Musaed, vice president of the Saudi Olympic and Paralympic Committee and head of the Saudi delegation, the Kingdom’s completed its participation with Ali Al-Fuzai and Ghram Kaabi carrying the Saudi flag at the closing ceremony, held in the Olympic Village square.
The Saudi team concluded its participation in the tournament with a gold medal in the 400 meter freestyle race by swimmer Rami Al-Rahmouni, who finished with a time of 3:47.86 minutes. The Saudi team’s participation in the tournament included 14 male and female players in nine sports.
Al-Rahmouni’s medal was the first for Saudi swimming in the history of the Kingdom’s participation in the Olympic Games in general, and the second gold medal for the Saudi team in the history of the Youth Olympic Games, after the karate gold medal at Buenos Aires 2018.
The Saudi participation in Dakar witnessed a number of outstanding individual results, including runner Naif Al-Samiri achieving fifth place in the final of the 110 meter hurdles race with a time of 13.70 seconds, a new personal record, in addition to Al-Fuzai, the Saudi national fencing team member, reaching the quarterfinals of the epee event, after topping the players’ rankings in the group stage with five consecutive victories.
With this participation, the Saudi team raised its historical tally in the Summer Youth Olympic Games to five medals, including two gold and three bronze medals, since the tournament’s first edition in Singapore in 2010, through Nanjing in 2014 and Buenos Aires in 2018, and up to Dakar this year.
