At halfway point of the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) in Buenos Aires, Europe’s best young athletes are shining bright.
Athletes from 66 NOCs, out of the 206 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) competing in the Argentinian capital, have already won the highly coveted medals. Out of all the medalling NOCs, 33 or exactly half, are from Europe.
After six days of competitions, Europe is proudly topping the medal standings as Russian athletes already won an extraordinary 27 medals (18 gold, 5 silver and 5 bronze). Other really successful European NOC’s include Italy who so far has earned 17 medals (3 gold, 6 silver and 8 bronze ones) and Hungary who has won 10 medals (8 gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze ones) so far.
Many European Youth Olympic Festival (EYOF) medallists are keeping their momentum high and adding to their medal collections. Italian swimmer Thomas Ceccon added a YOG gold in the 50m Freestyle, two silver medals in the 50m Backstroke and 200m Individual Medley and a bronze in the Men’s 100m Backstroke to his EYOF gold and bronze medals. After winning two gold medals at the EYOF in 2017, Russian swimmer Daria Vaskina added a YOG gold in the 100m Backstroke and a silver in the 50m Backstroke competitions to her collection of successes, while Hungarian Blanka Berecz added a YOG gold in the 200m Butterfly competition to her EYOF gold.
After both winning bronze medals in Judo at the 2017 EYOF, Hungarian Szofi Ozbas won a gold medal in the -63kg YOG competition while Ukrainian Oleh Veredyba earned a YOG bronze in the -55kg one.
So far, the first half of the YOG has been filled with great news from European athletes as the ‘old continent’ is proving to be full of young talent, and with plenty of competition days ahead, make sure to stay tuned to see who will be tomorrow’s brightest stars!
