Thaindian News

London, Jan 31 (IANS) The British Olympic Association (BOA) says the city of Glasgow has formally expressed its interest in hosting the 2018 Youth Olympic Games (YOG) if the BOA decides to go ahead with a bid from England.

Glasgow, which will host the 2014 Commonwealth Games, was the only city to officially declare its interest to the BOA ahead of Monday’s deadline for potential YOG candidate cities.

Over the next four weeks, the BOA will work together with representatives from Glasgow to discuss, test and further develop the submission. The BOA Board will make a recommendation to the National Olympic Committee which will decide whether to go ahead with a bid or not February 27, ahead of the deadline for the BOA to submit a bid to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) March 1, Xinhua reports.

Ultimately, the IOC will produce a short list of candidate cities in Jan 2013, before announcing the winning host city in the summer of the same year.

It is the sole responsibility of the BOA, as the National Olympic Committee for Britain and Northern Ireland, to approve a candidate city and agree to submit a bid to the IOC for consideration.

The 2018 YOG will involve approximately 3,600 young athletes, aged 15-18, participating across 28 summer Olympic sports on 12 days of competition.

The inaugural Youth Olympic Games took place in Singapore in 2010, and the first winter YOG was held in Innsbruck earlier in the month.

The second edition is due to take place in Nanjing, China, in 2014, with the winter version to be held in Lillehammer, Norway, in 2016.

The athletes will not only compete at the highest level of international youth sport, but will also take part in a Cultural and Education Programme, which is a core element of the Youth Olympics.