There have been questions raised as to the awareness of the Games, and the whole Youth Olympic concept, with people in countries such as Great Britain and Australia claiming there has been minimal coverage.

Engaging people internationally is particularly important for the IOC due to their aim of using the Youth Olympics to help get young people "off the couch" and participating in sporting activity.

Speaking at the midway point of Nanjing 2014 this afternoon, Adams denied there had been a lack of international coverage, pointing to the 30 journalists from the BBC are here amid interest from major news channels in Canada and Brazil and from United States giants NBC Olympics , who, together with Universal Sports, are presenting more than 50 hours of footage.

"It is a new product, so we are still in the launch phase and in the early history of this," Adams said.

"Of course, if you are looking for us to get the same coverage as the Olympic Games, we are hoping to one day, but you know, from small acorns mighty oaks should grow...

"We will get there, and we are getting much more coverage than you'd imagine.

"In our polling that we did beforehand on the awareness of the Youth Olympic Games, of those questioned, 30 per cent claimed to be aware.

"This is only the second edition of the Summer Youth Olympics, so I think we are getting there."

Nanjing 2014 has receive huge interest in China but also good attention elsewhere, International Olympic Committee communications director Mark Adams claims ©Getty Images







There is no doubt that the Games are being widely covered in China, with the hastag #YOGselfie, posted during the Opening Ceremony last Saturday (August 16), having been shared by 35 million people on Chinese micro-blogging site Sina Weibo.

It has also been seen by an estimated total of between 400 and 450 million people.

Strong support has been evident at most, if not all, of the venues and wider programmes, while the scarcely believable number of billboards and posters showcasing the Games has deemed it virtually impossible to ignore for anyone here in the host city.

This comes at a time when there is a lot of discussion about whether the Youth Olympics is the best and most financially viable way of promoting youth sport, with this a key component of the ongoing Olympic Agenda 2020 reform process.

Speaking before the Opening Ceremony, IOC President Thomas Bach admitted that, once the Games here have finished, they would consider reviewing aspects of the Youth Olympics because "nothing in this world is so good that it cannot be tampered with". 

"Selfies" have been a key way to boost the appeal of the Youth Olympics
©AFP/Getty Images



Adams revealed that the IOC are planning to use social media even more to try to ensure the Games receive widespread coverage.

This comes after the IOC worked with the Chinese authorities to ensure that a ban on "politically sensitive" websites such as Twitter and Facebook, outlawed since 2009 as part of a wider censorship of online information, would be lifted during the Games.

Although initial reports suggested that the ban remained, and there have been lingering problems with accessing the internet, Facebook and Twitter has been widely available, a major boost for the IOC.

"On Twitter, on the opening day we reached two million people and that is not to be sniffed at," added Adams.

"All of our allies from National Olympic Committees and International Sporting Federations are all doing some great work on social media, and it's also a chance for us to innovate."

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