Youth Olympic Games YOG, and four of them include bringing together the world's best young athletes, offering an introduction into Olympism, innovating in educating and debating Olympic values. The city of Singapore was announced as the host of the inaugural Summer Youth Olympics on 21 February 2008. On 12 December 2008 the IOC announced that Innsbruck, host of the 1964 and 1976 Winter Olympics, would be the host of the inaugural Winter Youth Olympics in 2012. The scale of the Youth Olympic Games is smaller than that of the Olympics, which is intentional and allows for smaller cities to host an Olympic event.
2001 National Games of China opening ceremony. The ninth national games were hosted soon after Beijing had been successful in its host bid for the 2008 Summer Olympics. As a result, many prominent international guests were invited to the games in Guangzhou, including IOC president Jacques Rogge. The international dimension of the games was increased in comparison to previous years as many of the delegations had appointed foreign-born coaches and foreign referees were invited to the event to improve impartiality judge-based sports. High performances levels were achieved in a number of sports: seven women's weightlifting world records were broken, six Asian records were beaten in