Lausanne, Switzerland: In just 200 days, on August 14, 2010, Singapore will open its doors to 3,600 of the world’s best young athletes for the first Youth Olympic Games. To celebrate the countdown, the International Olympic Committee has today launched the visual identity of the Youth Olympic Games: YOG-DNA.

The YOG-DNA label can be viewed on the YOG website, “the Cube” www.olympic.org/yog, and will be integrated into all YOG digital and social media concepts in both the build-up to Singapore 2010 and future YOG editions. A film has also been created, which takes the viewer on a journey to understand what it means to have YOG-DNA.

YOG-DNA is targeted at young people, not as a logo or a brand, but as a label. It represents the attitudes and freedom of young people and has no restrictions like a traditional brand. It is to be used by young people as a stamp of approval for anything that has the “Spirit of the Youth Olympic Games”.

The YOG-DNA label will also be amalgamated for the first time into a YOG emblem for Innsbruck 2012, which will be launched in February during the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games.

IOC President Jacques Rogge said: “The 200-day countdown is a great milestone in our journey to the Youth Olympic Games. So much has been achieved over a short space of time and we are now in the final stretch. We are not only building an event for the world’s most talented young athletes, we are creating a platform to communicate to young people worldwide to interact through sport, culture and education, all of which is underpinned by YOG-DNA, the Spirit of the Youth Olympic Games”.

The Singapore Organising Committee is also celebrating the 200-day countdown by announcing the route of the Journey of the Youth Olympic Flame, an initiative that intends to bring the Spirit of the YOG to each continent. The flame will be lit in Athens in July and its journey will visit five international locations -- Berlin, Dakar, Mexico City, Auckland and Seoul -- before arriving in Singapore in August.