The International Olympic Committee says up to 17 countries have expressed interest in hosting future Youth Olympic Games (YOG), including the United States and others from Africa and Latin America. The inaugural winter games will be held in Innsbruck, Austria in 2012 and the next summer games in Nanjing, China in 2014. Lillehammer, Norway, which hosted the 1994 Winter Olympics, is the only city which has expressed an interest in hosting the 2016 winter games, the IOC said, and has until November to submit a formal bid. The IOC's Olympic Games Executive Director Gilbert Felli said Saturday that an African and Latin American country as well as “some cities in the United States” have expressed interest in hosting the event in 2018 and beyond, but would not name them. The inaugural Youth Olympics in Singapore is a 12-day event in which 3,600 athletes aged 14 to 18 from 204 national Olympic committees compete in 26 sports. So far, medals have been awarded to athletes from 60 countries. Odane Skeen of Jamaica ran 10.42 seconds to win the boys' 100 gold Saturday, beating Masaki Nashimoto of Japan and Britain's David Bolarinwa. Nigeria's Josephine Omaka won the girls' 100 gold ahead of Myasia Jacobs of the United States and Dominican Republic's Fany Chalas. Russia's Ekaterina Bleskina beat out Michelle Jenneke of Australia to win the gold in the girl's 100-meter hurdles while Luguelin Santos of the Dominican Republic took gold in the boy's 400 meters, ahead of Ruan Greyling of South Africa. In archery, Egypt's Ibrahim Sabry took gold in junior individual category, easily defeating Rick Van Den Oever of the Netherlands. Medals are also scheduled to be handed out in artistic gymnastics, athletics, diving, judo, modern pentathlon and tennis. China leads the games with 20 golds and 33 medals overall. Russia is second with 15 golds and 32 overall, while South Korea has seven golds. Tang Yi has been the star of the games so far. The 17-year-old Chinese has won six of her country's 11 swimming golds. American athletes had their best day of the games Saturday, winning two golds, a silver and a bronze. Until Saturday, Americans had won only one gold along with four silvers and two bronzes.
