体坛英语新闻：Glasgow becomes UK's only potential candidate city for 2018 YOG bid

LONDON, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- The British Olympic Association (BOA) announced on Monday that it has received a submission from the city of Glasgow in Scotland to formally express its interest in being put forward as a candidate city for the 2018 Youth Olympic Games (YOG), should the BOA decide to go ahead with a bid from the UK.

Glasgow, which will host the Commonwealth Games in 2014, was the only city to officially declare its interest to the BOA ahead of today's deadline for potential candidate cities in the UK to express their interest in being considered for a bid to host the 2018 YOG.

Over the course of the next four weeks, the BOA will work together with representatives from the city of Glasgow to discuss, test and further develop the submission. The BOA Board will make a recommendation to the National Olympic Committee which will decide whether to go ahead with a bid or not on 27 February 2012, ahead of the deadline for the BOA to submit a bid to the IOC on 1 March.

Ultimately, the IOC will produce a short list of candidate cities in January 2013, before announcing the winning host city in the summer of 2013.

It is the sole responsibility of the BOA, as the National Olympic Committee for Britain and Northern Ireland, to approve a candidate city and agree to submit a bid to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for consideration.

The 2018 YOG will involve approximately 3,600 young athletes, aged 15-18, participating across all of the 28 summer Olympic sports in 12 days of competition.

The inaugural Youth Olympic Games took place in Singapore in 2010, and the first winter YOG was held in Innsbruck earlier this month.

The second editions are due to take place in Nanjing, China in 2014, with the winter version to be held in Lillehammer, Norway in 2016.

The athletes will not only compete at the highest level of international youth sport, but will also take part in a Culture and Education Programme, which is a core element of the Youth Olympics.