The 2020 Winter Youth Olympic Games is the third edition of the Winter Youth Olympics and is known as Lausanne 2020. This is an international multi-sport event for teenagers going to be held in Lausanne, Switzerland starting from 9th January 2020 till 22nd January 2020.

Lausanne is the home to the International Olympic Committee who will be organizing the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics with a total participation of 1,880 young elite athletes from all over the world. 

The opening ceremony of the 2020 Winter Youth Olympic Games will be taking place on 9th January 2020, Thursday at the Vaudoise Aréna stadium in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The official mascot of the 2020 Winter Olympics is the Yodle. It was unveiled on 8th January 2019 at the CIG de Malley right before the Lausanne HC and HC Davos match. It has been created by ERACOM and has been inspired by a combination of cow, Saint Bernard dog, and a goat.

Regarding the matter of tickets, tickets have to be bought for the Opening Ceremony of the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics. Apart from this, all the other events would be free to watch.

Over 70 nations will be participating in around 81 events at the Stadium Vaudoise Aréna. Following will be the events and the location in which they will take place:

Lausanne:

1. Vaudoise Aréna
   

•     Opening and closing ceremonies
  
•      Ice hockey finals
  
•      Figure skating
  
•      Short Track speed skating

1. Lausanne campus - Olympic village

1. Le Flon – Medal ceremonies

Jura:

1. Prémanon, France

• Ski jumping
•  Biathlon
•  Nordic Combined

1. Le Brassus - Cross-country Skiing

Alps:

1. Leysin

• Ski Freestyle (Halfpipe, Slopestyle)
• Snowboard (Halfpipe, Slopestyle)

1. Les Diablerets – Alpine skiing

1. Villars-Sur-Ollon

• Ski Cross
• Snowboard Cross
• Ski Mountaineering

1. Champéry – Curling

1. St. Moritz

• Speed skating
• Bobsleigh
• Skeleton
•  Luge
• Medal ceremonies

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The Youth Olympic Games is going to feature a total of 8 sports and 16 disciplines. The 16 disciplines include Alpine skiing, Biathlon, Bobsleigh, Cross-country skiing, Curling, Figure skating, Freestyle skiing, Ice hockey, Luge, Nordic combined, Short track speed skating, Skeleton, Ski jumping, Ski mountaineering, Snowboarding, and Speed skating.

As of now, Total 73 nations have qualified athletes. About 12 NOC's have been scheduled to make debuts in the Winter Youth Olympics. These include Albania, Azerbaijan, Ecuador, Haiti, Hong Kong, Kosovo, North Korea, Qatar, Singapore, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, and Turkmenistan. This list includes three countries that have never competed at the Adult Winter Olympics and these are Haiti, Qatar and Turkmenistan.

Russia has been banned from all the International sports for four years by the World Anti-Doping Agency on 9th December 2019. The decision was taken after it was found that the data given by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency was manipulated by the Russian authorities.

The Ski mountaineering is the newest sport that has got the approval for the Lausanne 2020 Winter Youth Olympics. This sport basically includes scaling the mountains on skis and skiing back down. An equal number of male and female athletes will be featured just like in the case of Buenos Aires. 

Out of the total 81 events,  13 events will be mixed team events (NOCs), 34 men's events, and 34 women's events. The Ski mountaineering and the women's Nordic combined will be featured for the first time in an Olympic event. A mixed-NOC 3-on-3 ice hockey tournament and a women's doubles in luge will also feature for the first time.

A total of 1,880 athletes aged between 15 and 18 years will be participating. More than 3,000 volunteers will be there to help in the Games. This time, 2020 Lausanne's venues will be spread across more than one city unlike Buenos Aires 2018. 

ABOUT THE YOUTH OLYMPIC GAMES

The Youth Olympic Games (YOG) is a sporting event for young athletes participating from across the world. But, the popular elite event also includes some educational activities focusing at:

•   Protection of the athletes
•   working on enhancing the performance
•   providing assistance to the athletes outside of sports

The program is based on the Olympic Games. It includes various sports, disciplines including breaking, sport climbing, 3-x-3 basketball, 3-x-3 ice hockey, mixed-gender, and mixed National Olympic Committee (NOC) events.

There are various activities apart from the sports including interactive activities, workshops, team-building exercises, etc. These activities will help the athletes in exploring the various other cultures, developing various skills, and helping them improve the methods of training as well as performance.

The previous Summer Youth Olympic Games held at Buenos Aires in the year 2018 had featured a total of 4,000 athletes and had an achievement in the sphere of gender equality.  The previous Winter Youth Olympic Games had taken place in Lillehammer in the year 2016 and had featured a total of 1,100 athletes.

Just like the Olympic Games, the YOG are also held every four years. The first summer Youth Olympic Games was held from 14th August till 26th August 2010 in Singapore and the first winter Youth Olympic Games was held from 13th January till 22nd January 2012 in Innsbruck, Austria. After this, the next YOG was held in Nanjing, China (in the year 2014), Lillehammer, Norway (in the year 2016) and Buenos Aires, Argentina (in the year 2018). After this, the next Winter YOG is going to be held in the Olympic Capital of Lausanne, in Switzerland in January 2020.

The Olympic Channel is going to stream about 300 hours of action that will take place in the 13 days in Lausanne, Switzerland. A Winter YOG channel is made available on the olympicchannel.com, YouTube and various other devices including the Amazon Fire, Apple TV, Android TV, and the Roku.

The daily live show will be shown featuring the news, highlights of the events, trending news and stories, the fun interviews and much more on various sources such as Facebook, Twitter, olympicchannel.com. Interestingly, a daily podcast on the Olympic Channel will feature the athlete and famous people interviews.

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