Road cycling takes center stage at the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games on 8 and 10 November, as the next generation of international talent competes in Senegal.

The Games, which run from 31 October to 13 November, mark a historic milestone: Dakar 2026 will be the first Olympic sporting event held on African soil. About 2,700 athletes from 206 National Olympic Committees will compete in 25 sports across Dakar, Diamniadio and Saly. For cycling fans, the action comes in the second week, on the city's Atlantic seafront.

Schedule: two days, four titles

Road cycling will be contested over two days at Corniche West, Dakar, with both the road races and individual time trials scheduled to start and finish at the coastal venue.

The program has four medal events: 

• Sunday 8 November, 09:00: girls' road race
• Sunday 8 November, 11:00: boys' road race
• Tuesday 10 November, 09:00: girls' individual time trial
• Tuesday 10 November, 10:30: boys' individual time trial

All times are local Dakar time (UTC+0).

Road cycling is the only cycling discipline on the program in Dakar. The three earlier summer editions, in Singapore (2010), Nanjing (2014) and Buenos Aires (2018), also featured BMX and mountain biking, which makes this a clear break with tradition. 

The parcours: flat, fast and by the ocean

The Corniche West venue will provide the setting for both days of cycling competition. Located along Dakar's Atlantic coastline, the area offers a distinctive backdrop for an international sporting event. Start and finish are  near the Place du Souvenir Africain. The road races use a flat 8.5 km circuit: the girls ride seven laps (59.5 km) and the boys nine (about 76.5 km). Riders who are lapped by the leaders are pulled from the race.

On paper this is a course for fast finishers. Nothing on the profile looks selective, so a bunch sprint is the obvious scenario, although exposure to the sea wind could change that if the peloton splits in the crosswinds. The Corniche itself has been redeveloped before the Games, with a continuous path for walkers and cyclists along roughly 10 km of coastline, and it doubles as the main festival hub of the Games.

Who is riding

The cycling competition in Dakar will be quite different from a regular junior race. For starters, an unusual small field will be lining up: 42 girls and 41 boys from 57 countries. Every rider contests both the road race and the time trial. 

Each country is limited to one rider per race, only host nation Senegal enters two riders. That implies team tactics are irrelevant, and the race will be purely individual.

Riders must be born between 14 November 2008 and 31 December 2009. That exact cut-off is unusual. Age categories in cycling normally work by year of birth alone. The Youth Olympics instead draw the line in mid-November, because every athlete must still be 17 when the Games end. Late birthdays tend to be a handicap in youth sport, since those riders face peers who are almost a year older. For the 2008 generation the tables are turned: only riders born after 14 November qualify, so a December birthday is exactly what gets a rider to the start line.

For a complete list of entries sorted by age, you can check the official Dakar 2026 website.

Girls to watch

As the flat circuit suggests, the road race medals are likely to go to the strong sprinters.

The first name that comes to mind is that of Salomé Vargas, daughter of Colombia's national road coach David Vargas. She is the reigning Pan American and Colombian junior road champion. The way she won the Pan American title in a bunch sprint in March was particularly impressive. After crashing twice earlier in the race, she only managed to return to the bunch in the very last lap, but still had enough power left to take the win. Turning 18 on 2 December, she is the oldest among all of the participants.

Vargas will face some fierce competition though, not least from Jana Gevers. She has been crowned Belgian champion in the U17 and U19 category for three consecutive years. Fellow juniors count her among the fastest sprinters in Belgium. This summer, she won silver in the scratch race and the team pursuit at the UCI Track World Championships on home soil in Heusden-Zolder. In an interview with the Belgian newspaper Gazet van Antwerpen, Gevers didn't hide her ambitions and said she was dreaming of victory in the road race in Senegal.

Another strong opponent will be Angelina Novolodskaya. The Russian, hailing from Saint Petersburg, is the 2026 Junior World and European Track omnium champion, which shows her great versatility. The omnium is an event that requires a combination of tactical awareness, endurance, acceleration, positioning and the ability to score points across several different race formats. Also on the road, Novolodskaya has been successful, winning a stage at the Giro delle Marche in Rosa against elite and U23 riders and obtaining a top 10 at the prestigious Nations Cup race Piccolo Trofeo Alfredo Binda.

Italy also sends a strong contender to Dakar. Anna Bonassi has accumulated approximately 50 victories across the youth categories over four years, and is described as a puncheur with a strong finish and a very quick acceleration. She had a somewhat difficult 2026 stepping up to the U19 ranks, but these Games seem the perfect opportunity for her to bounce back. Bonassi knows how to win an Olympic event: in 2025 she won the road race at the European Youth Olympic Festival in Skopje, in a sprint ahead of Belgium's Anna Meeusen and Britain's Melanie Rowe.

Australia sends a rider with a strong track background to Senegal. Elsie Apps has four national track titles across scratch, keirin, 1 km time trial and madison. On the road, she is the Australian U19 criterium champion, and has already spent two seasons in Belgium with the Australian Cycling Academy. This spring and summer, Apps was consistently in the mix in the sprints in the Belgian kermesses, and managed to claim her first victory in Arendonk. Initially, she didn't plan to apply for a selection for the Youth Olympic Games, but she changed her mind when she found out it was completely flat.

One more name to keep in mind is Madison Bateson. While she mainly focuses on mountain biking, she is also the South African and African road champion. Just a few weeks ago, she took the African title in a sprint ahead of Egypt's Joudy El Sayed.

In the time trial, keep an eye on Karolína Hajduková (Slovak champion and gold medal winner at the 2025 European Youth Olympic Festival), June Nothum (Luxembourg champion and fourth last month in the Chrono des Nations) and Anel Tashbay from Kazakhstan (Asian junior champion in both the road race and the time trial, and winner of the time trial at the Asian Youth Games in Bahrain).

Boys to watch

Among the boys, Belgium has a strong contender for the win. Daan Wilmsen is a cobbled classics specialist with a powerful sprint. This year, he won a stage in the Guido Reybrouck Classic, finished runner-up in Nokere Koerse and finished ninth at Paris-Roubaix U19, among the world's best junior riders. These results earned him a contract for 2027 and 2028 with the Lotto-Wanty Development team. Interestingly, Wilmsen lives in Olen, the same town as Jana Gevers, and their homes are just 1 km apart.

Another strong sprinter is Juan Esteban Sánchez of Colombia. Like his compatriot Vargas, he is both Pan American and national junior road champion. Over the summer, Sánchez also raced in Spain. He claimed victory at the Gran Premio de Benagéber from a breakaway, showing he can compete on selective Spanish courses.

One rider on the start list has a remarkable story to tell: Zéphirin Le Normand Lucas. Until two years ago, Le Normand played football. He has only just completed his first year as a cyclist. During that year, he tried track cycling 'for fun',  as he told Ouest-France, and... became a world silver medallist in both the individual pursuit and the omnium. He was also successful on the road, claiming seven victories, including the UCI 1.1 race GP Plouay. A medal in Dakar would be the icing on the cake of an extraordinary year.

For most riders, these Youth Games come at the end of a long season. For Rohnan Nicholson from Zimbabwe, it's slightly different. Ever since he found out the event would take place on African soil, he has been dreaming of racing here. He has been preparing in the Netherlands, training and racing with the Watersley R&D team. He comes to Dakar with high expectations: "I would like to walk away from the race with a podium position," he told The Herald.  Just a few weeks ago, he showed his excellent form by becoming the African junior road race champion in Kenya.

Another name that stands out is Timotej Michalík. The Slovak rides for the Roman Kreuziger Cycling Academy. He finished fourth in the road race at the 2025 European Youth Olympic Festival in Skopje and was second overall at the Nations Cup race Medzinárodné Dni Cyklistiky in June.

Australia's Caleb McKenzie, brother of UCI WorldTour professional Hamish McKenzie, mainly focuses on the time trial. Italy also has Lorenzo Ceccarello, who was part of the junior squad that won both the world and European titles in the team pursuit. Spain, meanwhile, sends Alejandro Wymmersch to Dakar. Wymmersch is a very strong rider who has won several races in Spain from the breakaway and might surprise the sprinters with a late attack.

Where to watch

Everything is broadcast live on the official Youth Olympic Games website, with no geo-restrictions, so you can follow the races from anywhere: watch live on Olympics.com (8 and 10 November).