Dawn Fraser arrived in Tokyo for the 1964 Games as a three-time gold medal-winner on the verge of completing an extraordinary Olympic first. But she was also a lost 27-year-old dealing with severe pain and tragedy. Weeks later she left Japan as a record-breaker and, perhaps more importantly, with a renewed faith in humanity.

Olympic.org takes a look at what some former Youth Olympic Games (YOG) athletes are up to by diving into their social media posts.

Tunisian fencer Fares Ferjani reflects on his experiences at the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) Nanjing 2014 and reveals his ambitions for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.

At only 19 years of age, Poland’s Iga Swiatek, ranked 54th in the world, astonished the world’s tennis experts by claiming her first Grand Slam title, without dropping a set, on the clay courts of Roland Garros. The daughter of an Olympic rower, she rose to prominence two years ago, winning doubles gold at the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) in Buenos Aires. Now, she has her sights set on Tokyo.

On this International Day of the Girl, Young Leader Carolina Joly shares the reasons that prompted her to develop “Move to improve”, a project aimed at empowering women in her home country Panama, and explains how she kept the project running despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

On World Mental Health Day 2020, Danish canoeist René Holten Poulsen opens up about how a terrible experience at the Olympic Games Rio 2016 elicited a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) reaction, and details the steps he has taken to recover as he aims to come back stronger in Tokyo next year.

With smiling faces and a few happy tears, the 2019-2020 IOC Young Leaders programme came to a close yesterday. The 55 Young Leaders concluded their year-long initiative with a very touching closing ceremony, in which they presented their projects to each other after a discussion with IOC President Thomas Bach. 

Fifty-six years ago, Tokyo saw the opening of its first Olympic Games. That moment is seen by many as a turning point for Japan. The Games saw the country emerge from the devastating consequences of World War II as a united, peaceful member of the international community, a global industrial power and an exporter of top-quality technological goods.