The Olympic Youth Development Centre in Lusaka has clocked 10 years of operations.
The multi-sport facility was opened on May 11, 2010 by ex -republican President Rupiah Banda and former International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge.
OYDC has hosted numerous international and regional events including 2012 Africa Youth Zone 6 Championships.
It has also been a camping venue for Zambian athletes in transit for major international events.
Zambia’s senior and junior national teams and club’s use the facilities artificial football pitch to practice for foreign assignments on similar surfaces.
“The past ten years have been tremendous to us as we have witnessed a number of athletes who train from our facilities participate in competitive games such as Olympic Games and other regional games with some coming back home with medals,” OYDC CEO Fredrick Chitangala said.
OYDC has since its inception been home of junior sports programmes with the flagship initiative being the Teulings Sports Challenge sponsored by Coen Teulings, Chairman of the Merifin Capital in Belgium.
The Teulings Sports Challenge covers disciplines from football, tennis, volleyball, beach volleyball, swimming and taekwondo.
“In 2018 we were conferred with a ‘Medal of Honour’ by the African Union Sports Council (AUSC) Region 5 for our immerse contribution to sport development in the region. Not only that the OYDC Zambia in 2019 was recognized as a high performance centre by the Association of Sport Performance Centres (ASPC) based in Spain and subsequently became a member of the organization. We couldn’t attain all this without the unwavering support from everyone who uses our facility and see that the OYDC Zambia is always hive of activities,” Chitangala said.
