The Youth Olympics, credited as being the brainchild of current International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge, are the biggest event that Singapore has ever staged and they have earned widespread praise for their organisation.

A number of cities from around the world are here looking at the concept and whether to bid for a future Games but Sir Craig, a member of the IOC's ruling Executive Board, believes that they should only be given to smaller cities.

Sir Craig told insidethegames: "The original thinking behind the Youth Olympic Games was that they would go to cities which are not big enough to stage an Olympic Games.

"Singapore for example, would struggle to run a full Olympic Games.

"True, Nanjing [the 2014 host] in China is a relatively big city but China is rather an exceptional country and what they regard as a small city, as they do Nanjing, could perhaps be regarded as a big city in world terms.

"I’m pretty certain that the IOC will debrief this exercise very carefully when it’s finished to see if that should remain the policy but one thing for certain is that Singapore have got off to a wonderful start.

"The Opening Ceremony was spectacular and it looks to be from the level of competition and organisation so far that this has the potential to be a really good edition to the Olympic Movement.

"I’m sure that we will sit down and re-valuate the Games once they are over but I have certainly been very impressed by what I have seen here so far."

But Sir Craig, a former chairman of the British Olympic Association (BOA), does not believe that a British city will host the Games in the near future, although Birmingham have studied the possibility of bidding.

He said: "At the BOA [where Sir Craig was chairman between 1992 and 2005], we ran one of the early Youth Olympic Festivals in Bath in 1995, we held the Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002 and that in turn led to a successful bid for the London 2012 Games.

"We also have the Glasgow Commonwealth Games to come in 2014.

"Therefore, I think there is probably a feeling in the UK that we will have played our part and done our bit for the Olympic Movement for the time being in which case the Youth Olympics may go to other parts of the world before they come to Britain.

"But, if these Games are as successful as the IOC hope they will be, I’m quite certain that there will be cities all around the world looking at this and seeing whether they would be interested in being the host of them so you never know."

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