The United Sttates stayed away from Moscow 1980 and inspired West Germany, Japan, and Canada to do likewise. In 1984 a tit for tat boycott saw the Eastern bloc nations stayed away from Los Angeles and it was this lack of contact between East and West which was the catalyst for the setting up of the Youth Olympic Games.

The closing declaration of any Olympics "calls upon the youth of the world". As early as 1924 the Olympics included a day of sports for younger children known as "Jeux DÉnfance", and much later an Olympic Youth Camp ran in parallel to the Games themselves but this did not involve competitive sport. In Football, a World Youth Championships was held for the first time in 1977 and athletics followed in the 1980s, but the Olympic Movement did not have a junior multi sport event.

Then In July 1987, the Dutch Olympic Committee celebrated their 75th anniversary with what was described as an "International Youth Olympic Day " at Papendal . The gold medallist in the 800 metres was Britain's Kelly Holmes, then 17-years-old - 17 years later she would win he 800m and 1500m at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. 

At the time Jacques Rogge was a rising star in the administrative circles of the Olympic Movement. He had sailed for Belgium at three Olympics, served as a team official and made his career as a surgeon. He was increasingly concerned about the lack of Olympic contact between East and West following the successive boycotts of Moscow and Los Angeles.

Rogge had also been elected leader of the European Olympic Committees. (EOC) Although the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, he still felt that a multi-sport competition for youngsters had a valuable part to play.

In 1990, at their meeting in Amsterdam, the EOC decided that they would stage an event then known as the "European Youth Olympic Days" (EYOD) in Brussels the following summer. It was to be held under the patronage of King Baudouin with the support of the European Union, - then known as the European Economic Community or EEC -, the International Olympic Committee and King Baudouin of the Belgians who attended the Opening Ceremony.

Organisers said the Games would be open to all European countries, not just the 12 in the EEC.

They would consist of 10 sports and be aimed at "an average age of 14 to 16 depending on the sport".

The 12 EEC countries would be limited to 165 participants and the other 22 nations were permitted 50 competitors each.

It was a template which would largely be followed when the Youth Olympic Games were begun much later.

"This type of festival can serve as a springboard for the European Olympic athletes of tomorrow," said the organisers.

The competitions were to take place every two-years and plans were also laid for Winter Games.

Amongst the gold medallists in 1993 was Dutch swimmer Peter Van den Hoogenband, who went on to win Olympic 100m freestyle gold at Sydney 2000.

The idea of Youth Olympic festivals spread. In the wake of the Sydney 2000, Australia launched their own version every two years.

Rogge had by now become IOC President and when the 2007 Session gathered in Guatemala, he reported to his members on what was described as the Youth Olympic Games Project.

"The change in society illustrated by an increase in obesity, a decline in sports participation especially amongst young people," he told the IOC Session.

He was also concerned by a drop in school sport and the disappearance of playing fields in inner cities.

The YOG, Rogge proposed, would, he said "be complementary to the Olympic Games".

For some the Games would be a stepping stone to the Olympics but, said Rogge, "the YOG would also serve simply to help the athletes who did not make that step to be better human beings".

Juan Antonio Samaranch, former President of the IOC, insisted this was "possibly the most important step it had ever taken".

Veteran Canadian IOC member Rihard Pound expressed concern that "the problems facing young people were part of global problems beyond sport".

He proposed an alternative measure, a conference to identify global solutions in areas such as health and then integrate them.

‘"Only the top one percent of all athletes would be able to compete," Pound said. "Would these Games really encourage the couch potatoes to get up and go to the swimming pool or run on a race track?’"

Despite Pound’s concerns, when the vote was taken, it was approved "unanimously" by a show of hands.

Pound did not attend the first Games in Singapore in 2010. 

Ser Miang Ng, the IOC member in Singapore took charge of the Organising Committee and Sergey Bubka, the pole vault champion from Ukraine, led the IOC’s Coordination Commission for what were soon known as YOGs.

As with the earlier Youth Olympic festivals, each team was limited in size. This meant each National Olympic Committee would have carefully select the makeup of their team.

A cultural education programme included seminars and Athlete Role models (ARM) included Yelena Isinbeyeva, Frankie Fredericks, Bubka, Barbara Kendall and Alexander Popov. "At Chat with the Champions", young athletes were able to tap into the knowledge of athletes who had already achieved so much. 

"What we never had was this combination of education, culture and sport," said Rogge.

"We thought that bringing the young athletes together to benefit from Olympic values and the education programme gave added value."

The competing teams were all accommodated at Singapore University.

For Singapore, the YOG represented the closest they will realistically come to hosting the Olympic Games. Although they did not build any big stadia, they still pushed the boat out to a certain extent and the ceremonies were high production numbers.

The social media phenomenon Twitter was in its infancy but still put to good use in Singapore, as young volunteers at the sailing competitions tweeted reports on the progress of races, in windsurfing and byte, a non Olympic dinghy class which had been chosen for the YOGs.

When Rogge visited the sailing, he declared himself "very comfortable with Twitter".

It set the tone. His successor as IOC President Thomas Bach encouraged YOG competitors to take "selfies".

Bach’s first Youth Olympics were at Nanjing 2014. Chosen ahead of the Polish city of Poznan, there were senior IOC members who registered their disapproval.

"I am a little concerned. It is not cheap," said the late Finnish IOC member Peter Tallberg. "The IOC was told that these Youth Olympic Games would be at a cheap cost so hopefully that nations that cannot organise the normal Games will have a possibility to step in.

"When you have China, they can easily organise something like this, whereas I feel it should be nations who do not have the same possibilities as China."

Nanjing’s Games were indeed more like the Olympics in the way that they were staged.

The two Winter Youth Olympic Games staged so far have both been on a much more modest and informal scale. Innsbruck, the hosts in 2012 had previously staged the Olympics in 1964 and 1976 and put their facilities for those Games to good use. It was an example followed in 2016 by Lillehammer, the highly praised hosts of the 1994 Olympic Winter Games.

The education programme was still there but had been transformed in "Learn and Share". Athlete role models were on hand and workshops on all aspects of preparation were made available.

These zones also had substantial information on doping available.

The sport programmes have offered an intriguing glimpse into the future. 3x3 basketball will be part of Tokyo 2020 but made its bow at the YOG. Modelled on street basketball, it offers a much shorter version of the game. Sport climbing is another sport seen first at the YOG.

Mixed gender teams have also worked well in triathlon, swimming table tennis and fencing.

In sports such as modern pentathlon and archery, YOG events have included teams with competitors from more than one National Olympic Committee. In some ways this has been a throwback to the very first Games in 1896 when scratch pairs from different countries took part in tennis.

After Buenos Aires 2018, the Games are set for African soil for the first time in 2022. The Senegalese capital Dakar is the chosen city. If all goes well will it pave the way for a city on the continent to stage the Olympic Games themselves?