Moscow to bid for first Youth Olympics in 2010

MOSCOW, July 11 (Reuters) Moscow will bid to host the first Youth Summer Olympics in 2010, a senior Russian sports official said today.

Alexander Polinsky, general director of Moscow's bidding committee for the 2012 Olympics, said the Russian capital was the ideal choice to stage the youth version of the world's greatest sporting spectacle for athletes aged 14-18.

Moscow officials scheduled a news conference on Thursday at City Hall where they planned to make the announcement.

Moscow, which hosted the boycott-affected 1980 Summer Olympics, also staged the first Youth Games under the patronage of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1998.

Last week at its session in Guatemala, the IOC approved a plan to stage summer and winter Youth Games to try to overturn the dwindling interest of teenagers in the Olympic movement.

In Guatemala, the IOC also awarded the 2014 Winter Olympics to Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi.

The IOC is expected to name the Youth Games host city next February.

REUTERS SSC RK2149