The Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games Organising Committee (YOGOC) has unveiled its official video.

“Through poetic narration and striking imagery, this video tells the collective story of a continent that is proud, resilient and united, and which is ready to welcome the world with passion and ambition,” stated Dakar 2026 in a press release. “

“The cradle of humanity, a land of belief and resilience, is ready to make its mark on sporting history,” thunders the voice of the presenter, resonating with an energy that calls for unity and celebration.

The video highlights the founding values of the Youth Olympic Games: respect, humility, excellence and hope. It also highlights the central role of young people in shaping a shared future.

“This video is more than just a trailer,” added Dakar 2026. “It’s an invitation. With the participation of Olympic medalist and Senegalese athletics legend Amadou Dia Ba, it invites us to believe in the power of sport, support the next generation, and celebrate the diversity and strength of Africa.”

The Dakar Youth Olympics are scheduled to open on October 31, 2026. The cities of Diamniadio and Saly, along with Senegal’s capital city, will host this global celebration of sport and youth.

The programme includes 25 sports and will involve 2,700 athletes. The maximum age for participants will be 17 at the time of the Games.

Baseball5, the five-on-five version of baseball/softball, will be part of the programme. Baseball5’s inclusion marks the first time baseball/softball features in the sports programme at a Youth Olympic Games and it will also be the first Olympic team sport to feature mixed-gender teams.

“We are very excited for our urban discipline to play a key role at Dakar 2026, and I have no doubt it will be a huge hit,” commented WBSC President Riccardo Fraccari.

The Youth Olympic Games will involve 35 International Federations. Ten sports will form part of a new engagement programme, aimed at helping to build interest and participation within the host country and host region by enabling local young people to try these sports rather than simply being spectators.

Location

West Queen Anne Playfield, 150 W Blaine St., Seattle, WA 98119

Budget

The total budget for improvements to the eastern fields (Fields 1, 2, and the soccer field) is $6.8 million. Of this, $1.3 million has been secured through Seattle Metropolitan Parks District Funding. The remaining $5.5 million is anticipated through future real estate excise tax revenues.

SPR is exploring entering into a partnership with Queen Anne Little League to fund the proposed improvements for Field 3.

Schedule

Planning: Spring 2025 – Fall 2025
Design & Permitting: Late 2025 – Late 2026
Construction: Spring/Summer 2027
Completion: Fall 2027

Project Description

The West Queen Anne Playfield serves as a hub for sports activities, including baseball, softball, and soccer. The improvement project focuses on enhancing the athletic fields by extending their hours and season of use. This project includes two components:

• Improvements for fields 1, 2, and the soccer field: In 2021, SPR improved the field lighting for fields 1 and 2. The next phase of the project will further upgrade these fields by converting them from grass to synthetic turf and improving the backstops and perimeter fencing.
• Improvements to Field 3: Through a partnership with Queen Anne Little League, SPR is exploring broader improvements to Field 3, including a synthetic turf conversion, field lighting, and dugout improvements. The proposed improvements to Field 3 would be contingent upon the success of Queen Anne Little League’s planned fundraising campaign.

Both projects will also include pathway and access improvements to meet current accessibility standards.

The athletic fields will be closed during construction. SPR will work with our design and athletic scheduling teams to limit the impact on field users.

Community Participation

We anticipate hosting a community event in late 2025 to share the preliminary field designs with community members.

“Preston was a fun-loving, life-loving kid, with a little bit of devilish thrown in as well. He had fun, he loved his friends, and he enjoyed life every day. He had a great time; no bad days. He could disarm people and really get to know people. I love the fact that, when you were with him, he was just locked in. He wasn’t walking out the door. If he was here to talk, he’d flop on my bed and was all present,” Owens says.

On Wednesday, he definitely was present: The family held a fund-raiser for the Preston Settles Memorial Fund at The Cyclorama at the Boston Center for the Arts. The funds go toward providing automated external defibrillators (AEDs) to every youth-supporting facility in Massachusetts. In addition to food from star chefs like Douglass Williams and Lydia Shire, live music, and a casino, there was a strong medical component: Zoll Medical Corporation, which manufactures AEDs, was on-site to teach people how to use them. The American Heart Association trained guests in CPR.

“We’re trying to make people aware that AEDs have got to be in a place where people can actually see them and know where they are. We need to start thinking about that at all times. It doesn’t matter whether the kid is 15 years old, as my son was, or if it’s a 65-year-old male or female,” says Settles, a longtime restaurateur and real estate developer. “AEDs are so efficient; they actually tell you what to do. I’ll tell you: I had no idea there was such a thing as a portable AED before my son collapsed.”

Last year, to raise more awareness, the family introduced Bill H.4121 (The Preston Settles “Every Minute Counts” Act). This legislation will require AEDs at all public sporting events in the state with identifiable trained personnel to facilitate their use when needed. The bill is currently wending through the state Senate for final approval.

Preston Settles died of sudden cardiac arrest spurred by hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). With HCM, the heart muscle thickens. This can be asymptomatic, but the thickening can also cause shortness of breath, chest pain, and life-threatening irregular heartbeats, potentially leading to sudden cardiac death (SCD).

SCD is the leading cause of death among young athletes — but rare enough that, when it happens, not enough people know how to react. When a kid drops on a field, people can go into freeze mode. Owens wants parents and bystanders to know what to do, similar to being able to react quickly when a fire alarm goes off.

“My goal is not for anybody to be scared or fearful. The goal is for people to be prepared. If there’s fire, if we smell smoke, we think about where we’re going to go. We think about exits. Some families might have a meeting place. Fire is a reality, and sudden cardiac arrest is a reality,” Owens says. “When someone is having an arrest, recognize the signs and then have that same stop, drop, roll response that was drilled into our heads when we were kids.”

The family wants to ensure that schools and teams have fully enforced emergency response plans and that everyone — parents, coaches, spectators — knows where to locate the nearest, easily accessible AED and is up to date on CPR training.

As a clinician and a mom, Owens wants other parents to know: “If your kids are lightheaded, dizzy, or having palpitations, have the lowest threshold to get them checked out by their doctor. Don’t assume it’s dehydration,” she says.

Dr. Carolyn Ho, medical director of the Cardiovascular Genetics Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, tested the Settles family for HCM in the wake of Preston’s death. A cardiac MRI revealed that Darryl Settles has a minor cardiac thickening; he now has a defibrillator.

While a cardiac MRI is an advanced step, Ho wants families to begin by examining their personal history: Are there other family members with a history of cardiac problems? Sometimes, though — “and this is the thing that’s scary,” she says — there just aren’t preceding symptoms or family history. HCM can appear seemingly out of nowhere. Worse, many athletes are conditioned to push through physical discomfort.

“Cardiac arrest can happen to healthy youngsters or elite athletes, who by definition are in great shape and super-active. Athletes are trained to ignore signs. If you’re tired, throw up, or are hot, you’re meant to keep pushing through,” Ho warns.

Some countries have universal participation screenings for young athletes, where they undergo EKGs before being cleared to play sports. This isn’t an easily scalable solution, though, and can also uncover incidental and harmless findings, leading to needless tests and worry.

Instead, Ho says, “The first line of defense is parents or coaches keeping an eye out. If something seems out of the ordinary, have your child’s doctor take a good family history and a physical. If they detect a murmur or an abnormality,” she says, successive testing might include an echocardiogram, stress tests, monitoring for arrhythmias, or the MRI that diagnosed Darryl Settles.

“Kids often have a hard time reporting their symptoms and don’t have language or experience to describe it. Coaches and parents need to pay attention,” she says.

Owens also wants the parent community to understand grief. After Preston’s death, Owens began working with the palliative care and bereavement group at Boston Children’s Hospital and going to bereavement therapy. The treatment is targeted, but she points out that grief pervades every aspect of her life.

“Grief doesn’t stay only in the ‘I lost my person’ box. That grief affects all the other aspects of your life. … It infiltrates everything. Doing grief work and therapy has helped me carry it with me: It’s like a lovely sweater that I wear all the time that I love — because grief is love. You can’t have one without the other,” she says.

As a physician, her personal grief has deepened her compassion for patients.

“You know, we think as parents about the gifts that we want to give our kids. In losing Preston, there are all these gifts that he has given to me — deeper compassion, being present,” Owens says.

And here’s another lesson: She loves it when patients, or anyone in the community, mentions his name.

“For me, it was important to be open about our story. I think loss in general is really hard, and loss in the United States is handled differently than in other cultures,” she says. “Grief is OK, and we should work on it and not just try and put it in a box under the table.”

Owens often thinks about small talk — ‘How was your weekend? How was your vacation?’ — and “people don’t really want to know. They want to hear that it’s OK. I think we don’t have a way to communicate and understand and receive people, or really be open when people say, ‘It’s tough,’” she says.

“When you lose somebody, you want to talk about your person. People love it when you say their name — because that means they’re still around. When [patients] say, ‘I’m so sorry to hear about Preston,’ I’m like: ‘Oh my gosh! You really remember that my son’s name is Preston?’ It’s a little thing, but it’s huge.”

Darryl Settles, a longtime fixture on Boston’s real estate, cultural, and hospitality scenes, now has a renewed commitment to working less and enjoying life.

“I’m not going to be one of those guys who works until I’m 85. I went on a three-and-a-half-week holistic retreat in Vancouver after my son passed away. At that retreat, one of the things they talked about was: Nothing is promised. Retire when you can. Most people wait until they’re in their 70s or even later to retire, and they want to do their bucket list, but their body won’t allow them to. Enjoy life while your body allows you to do everything that you want to do. I’ve doubled down on that,” he says.

Learn more about the Preston Settles Memorial Fund at www.ps3casinonight.org.

Kara Baskin can be reached at kara.baskin@globe.com. Follow her @kcbaskin.