Pakistan Names Team for Dakar Youth Olympics 2026
Pakistan will field a five-member contingent at the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games in Senegal, with competition scheduled to run from October 31 to November 13.
The Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) announced the contingent on Friday after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) allocated Pakistan quota places in athletics and swimming. The timing matters: the announcement came on the eve of the Games, which open on Saturday.
Who is going to Dakar
The contingent is led by Lt Col (retd) Ahmed Ali Khan, named Chef de Mission. The athletes are Shahzain Safdar in athletics, and Hareem Malik and Syed Muhammad Daniyal Hatim in swimming. Safdar will be accompanied by athletics coach Rehan Yousaf.
Pakistan received one male quota place in athletics and two swimming places, one each for male and female athletes, through allocations made by the IOC. The athletes’ nominations were reviewed and vetted by the respective international federations in line with the age limits and eligibility requirements for participation in the event.
That quota route is worth understanding. A Youth Olympics place is not won at a single trial. It comes through a quota allocated to a national Olympic committee, and the athlete named for it must meet the federation’s age and eligibility rules. For a country with a small youth programme, each quota is hard won, and each athlete carries the weight of a system that produced few international-standard juniors in that sport.
The POA said Pakistan’s participation reflected the IOC’s commitment to providing athletes from across the world’s national Olympic committees with opportunities to take part in events within the Olympic Movement. The association expressed confidence that the contingent would uphold the values of sportsmanship, discipline and integrity while representing the country.
Africa’s first Olympic event
Dakar 2026 is the first Olympic event of any kind staged on African soil. Around 2,700 athletes aged 15 to 17 are expected to compete across 25 sports, with events spread across Dakar, Diamniadio and Saly.
The Youth Olympic Games are the IOC’s elite multi-sport competition for teenagers. They combine high-level competition with learning and cultural exchange, and they add newer sports and mixed-gender events alongside the traditional programme. The first edition was held in Singapore in 2010, followed by Nanjing in 2014 and Buenos Aires in 2018. Dakar was due to host in 2022 before the pandemic forced a postponement.
A result in Dakar gives a young athlete a measured mark against the world’s best in their age group.
What to watch
In athletics, Shahzain Safdar will carry Pakistan’s hopes in a sport where the country has a proud senior history but a thin junior pipeline. His event details were not included in the POA announcement, and his progress will be followed event by event once competition begins.
In swimming, Hareem Malik and Syed Muhammad Daniyal Hatim will compete in a sport where Pakistan has struggled for international depth. Simply qualifying through the IOC quota system is a step, but the real measure will be times and heats: whether Pakistan’s swimmers can post competitive times against juniors from established swimming nations.
The value of a small contingent should not be judged only by medals. For Pakistan, Dakar is also a test of its youth development pathway. If athletes return with experience, contacts and a clear sense of the gap to the world’s best, the trip will have served a purpose even without a podium finish. If they return without follow-up support, coaching and competition, the experience will fade quickly.
Pakistan’s sporting attention this week has been fixed on the home ODI tri-series, with the final in Lahore covered in our report on the tri-series final and the build-up covered in our report on the final preview. The Dakar team deserves a share of that attention, even though its stage is smaller. Youth sport rarely makes headlines at home, and that is part of the problem it faces.
Athletics at home has produced recent success, including WAPDA’s strong showing at the National Athletics Championships, covered in our report on the championships. The challenge now is to turn domestic results into international ones, and Dakar is where that challenge will be measured for three young Pakistanis.
The Games open on Saturday. Pakistan’s athletes will walk in with a small team, a clear programme and a large opportunity: to show that the country’s youth system can produce competitors, not just participants, at the highest junior level in the world.
*Source: Tribune, October 30, 2026. Further detail: Tribune’s report on the Youth Olympics contingent.*
