Rwanda’s delegation to the inaugural Youth Olympic Games in Singapore jets out of this country today aboard Ethiopian airways. The Games start this weekend.

The seven-man delegation includes two athletes, one boxer, one swimmer and two coaches and Youth Olympic Ambassador, Serge Mwambali.

The boxing team has Haziza Matusi and his trainer Gashugi Kananura, Marie Claudine Iradukunda (swimming), Potien Ntawuyirushintege and Jacqueline Murekatete (athletics 3000m) and their coach Peter Ndayisaba.

The inaugural Youth Olympic Games will bring together approximately 3,600 athletes and 1450 officials from across the world.

Meanwhile, Rwanda’s delegation Chief de Mission, Thierry Ntwali left on Sunday for Singapore to prepare for the team’s arrival.

The Youth Games, which begin Saturday, will be about staging high-level competition in 26 sports while providing guidance and encouragement to some 3,600 of the world’s best athletes between 14 and 18.

In addition to two-weeks of first-class competition, the athletes will take part in a wide range of cultural and educational activities aimed at equipping them with the skills to make reasoned, intelligent decisions in life.

The program will cover a host of topics, including the benefits of leading healthy lifestyles, the dangers of doping, and the value of friendship, solidarity and fair play.

"If the Youth Olympics can help provide the world’s youth, one athlete at a time, with a path to better, brighter, healthier futures, we will have succeeded.

And very soon, the Youth Games will become as much an indispensable fixture of the Olympic calendar as its grown-up brothers,” said Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee.

Ends