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When the IOC trimmed the Youth Olympic programme for Dakar 2026, it removed shooting, weightlifting and hockey, the three sports that won India seven of its 13 medals at Buenos Aires 2018. India’s first two medals in Senegal came instead from swimming and judo, sports that had given the country one Youth Olympic medal between them.

A swimmer doing freestyle in a competition pool

What Dakar took away

The IOC executive board decided at a meeting in Lausanne on 3 December 2024 to take shooting, weightlifting and hockey out of the Youth Olympic medal programme, PTI reported. The three were moved into a 10-sport non-medal “engagement programme” with canoe-kayak, golf, karate, modern pentathlon, sport climbing, surfing and tennis. The IOC said it wanted “a tailored and efficient programme while maintaining the elite nature of the competition.”

For India, the cut was specific. At Buenos Aires 2018 the country won 13 medals: three gold, nine silver and one bronze. Shooting delivered four of them, including two golds; weightlifting gave one gold; hockey added two silvers. All three of India’s Youth Olympic golds, won by Manu Bhaker, Saurabh Chaudhary and Jeremy Lalrinnunga, came from sports that have no medals on offer in Dakar.

A smaller team at a bigger Games

The fourth Summer Youth Olympics run from 31 October to 13 November across Dakar, Diamniadio and Saly, with about 2,700 athletes from 204 countries competing in 25 sports and 153 medal events, according to Outlook.

India sent 17 athletes, 11 women and six men, across 11 sports: archery, athletics, badminton, beach wrestling, boxing, equestrian, judo, swimming, table tennis, windsurfing and wushu. It is India’s smallest Summer Youth Olympic squad since the event began in 2010. With coaches and support staff the delegation numbers 35, led by chef-de-mission Om Prakash Karhana.

Across the three earlier editions India won 23 Youth Olympic medals: three gold, 16 silver and four bronze.

Dhinidhi Desinghu: a first in the pool

On 2 November, 16-year-old Dhinidhi Desinghu won bronze in the women’s 100m freestyle in a personal best of 56.27 seconds, India’s first swimming medal at the Youth Olympics. Croatia’s Ana Bobanovic won gold in 55.89 and New Zealand’s Alyssa Lawson took silver in 56.13. Dhinidhi had won her heat in 56.80 to qualify third-fastest, behind Bobanovic (56.22) and Lawson (56.53), and was the first Indian female swimmer to reach a Youth Olympic final.

The final was where she found time. She took 0.53 seconds off her heat swim, while Bobanovic improved by 0.33 and Lawson by 0.40. The gap to gold at the finish was 0.38 seconds.

She has been on a big stage before. Born on 17 May 2010 and raised in Bengaluru, where she studies at Kendriya Vidyalaya DRDO, she swam the 200m freestyle at the Paris 2024 Olympics aged 14 on a universality quota, which Outlook says made her the second-youngest Indian to compete at an Olympics. At 14 she also became the youngest female swimmer to win seven golds at the National Games, and in 2025 she won three golds for Karnataka. At the 2025 Asian Youth Games in Bahrain she set a national record in the 400m freestyle, beating her own mark by three seconds. Bajaj Finserv, which has signed her, calls her India’s top-ranked swimmer.

The 100m is not even her main event. That is the 200m freestyle; she also swims the 200m individual medley.

Khushbu Darjada: one bout from gold

The same day, 15-year-old Khushbu Rajakbhai Darjada from Gujarat reached the final of the women’s 63kg judo. She beat Guinea’s Mamaissata Camara by yuko, then Morocco’s Abir Bouazzaoui and Algeria’s Dounia Berrahoual by ippon, and went through her semi-final when her opponent was given hansoku-make, judo’s most serious penalty, Outlook reported.

In the final she met Germany’s Jolina Reinhold, a cadet world champion, who won by ippon, according to UNI. The silver makes Khushbu only the second Indian judoka with a Youth Olympic medal, after Thangjam Tababi Devi’s silver in the women’s 44kg at Buenos Aires 2018. Gold would have made her only the fourth Indian to win a Youth Olympic title, and the first from outside shooting and weightlifting.

What to watch

The Games run until 13 November. India’s other sports in Dakar are archery, athletics, badminton, beach wrestling, boxing, equestrian, table tennis, windsurfing and wushu.

The larger test is depth. With the sports that built India’s 2018 tally gone from the medal list, Dakar measures the junior pipeline in disciplines that have rarely produced medals at this level. Two in the opening days is a start. Getting near 2018’s 13 without shooting, weightlifting or hockey would be an achievement of a different order.