Moscow - Russian authorities were gracious in defeat Thursday after losing out to the city of Singapore in the race to host the inaugural Youth Olympics in 2010. International Olympic Committee (IOC) President, Jacques Rogge, made the announcement at IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.
"Moscow does not feel like a loser at all, because the very idea Moscow's Mayor Yuri Luzhkov pioneered 10 years ago has been translated into reality," the Itar-Tass newsagency quoted Moscow Deputy Mayor Valery Vinogradov as saying.
"Our greetings to the more successful contestant, Singapore. It was a worthy rival to compete with."
The brainchild of Rogge, the Youth Olympics will bring together around 3,200 athletes (the regular Olympics have 10,000) aged 14-18 in 26 of the 28 Summer Games sports.
"Our task now is to prepare a group of Moscow athletes to be delegated to Russia's national team for the Youth Olympics. We declare our intention to bid for the right to host other major international events," said Vinogradov.
Singapore and Moscow were selected by an IOC evaluation committee from an original nine candidates, the others being Athens, Bangkok, Debrecen, Guatemala City, Kuala Lumpur, Poznan and Turin.
