The final line-ups for the recurve men’s and women’s events at the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games have been confirmed.
As at the previous edition in Buenos Aires in 2018, there will be 32 archers in each of the under-18 men’s and women’s categories, with all athletes competing in their respective individual events. The Dakar Games were originally scheduled for 2022 but were postponed to 2026 because of the pandemic. Fifty of the 64 archers will also compete in the mixed team tournament.
Quota places were allocated through a ranking system based on minimum qualification scores, with places distributed through continental allocations and an open allocation.
Dakar will be the fourth edition of the Youth Olympic Games to feature archery, following Singapore 2010, Nanjing 2014 and Buenos Aires 2018. It will also be the first edition held in Africa.
Although Senegal has no entries, the Senegalese capital will welcome 13 archers from across Africa from 6-10 November.
Two of them are Egyptian archers Ismail Ezzeldin and Nouray Elsayed, who will hope to follow in the footsteps of fellow Ibrahim Sabry, the Singapore 2010 men’s champion and one of the first archery gold medallists at the Games.
Ezzeldin will be one to watch, having won the recurve under-18 men’s title at the Oran 2026 African Championships earlier this year.
He and Elsayed will be joined by archers from Algeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mauritius, South Africa and Tunisia.
