Second Summer Youth Olympic Games |13 September 2014

Young athletes proud to have represented Seychelles

Young Seychellois athletes who took part in the 2014 Summer Youth Olympic Games are proud to have represented our country on such a stage despite not winning medals.
The athletes retuned to Seychelles earlier this month after competing in the Games held in Nanjing, in eastern China's Jiangsu Province from August 16-28.
Seychelles was represented in three disciplines by three athletes – Adam Viktora (swimming), Chlorie Cadeau (badminton) and Romentha Larue (weightlifting).
 
Swimmer Adam Viktora competed in two events. In the male 50m butterfly he finished sixth out of eight swimmers in the heats with a time of 26.76 seconds. He also swam the male 50m freestyle heat and clocked a time of 24.82 seconds to finish in second place out of eight swimmers, but his time was not good enough for him to qualify for the semifinal.

In badminton, young female player of the year Chlorie Cadeau competed in group A where she suffered losses in all her three matches. Cadeau lost her first match against Akane Yamaguchi of Japan on a 0-2 (2-21, 1-21) score.

Her second match also finished in defeat as she lost 0-2 (5-21, 0-21) to Denmark’s Mia Blichfeldt and she went on to lose her last match against Sri Lanka’s Thilini Promodika Hendahewa on a 0-2 (3-21, 6-21) score.

Romentha Larue competed in the women’s 58kg weightlifting category and she lifted a total of 120kg in group A of the competition. Larue lifted 55kg in snatch and managed 65kg in clean & jerk. She failed two attempts to lift 70kg in the clean & jerk event.

Seychelles Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association (Socga) executive member Simone Malbrook led the Seychelles delegation as chef de mission. Coaches Marcel Antat and Calix Francourt also formed part of the delegation.

The 2014 Summer Youth Olympic Games were the second Summer Youth Olympic Games, an international sports, education and cultural festival for teenagers.
Hosts China led the medals table after the games with a total of 38 gold, 13 silver and 14 bronze medals. Russia was second after winning 27 gold, 19 silver and 11 bronze medals.

The games were also affected by the Ebola crisis, where Chinese officials quarantined and isolated all Nigerian athletes from all sporting facilities despite all of them testing negative to Ebola before the start of the games. The Nigerian Olympic committee reacted by withdrawing all its athletes from the games.

The Nanjing Youth Olympics featured 28 sports – adding golf and rugby events – and 222 events attracting a total of 3,868 athletes, 282 more than the first Games in Singapore in 2010.

The next Youth Olympic Games will be held from September 11-23, 2018 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

S. N.