In a bid to safeguard young athletes and personnel, the European Olympic Committees (EOC) agreed to the postponement with local organisers of the Vuokatti 2021 EYOF.

The multi-sport event, catering for 14 to 18-year-old athletes, is now scheduled to take place from December 11 to 18.

"This was by no means an easy decision to take," said EOC Acting President Niels Nygaard.

"For many months now we had hoped against hope that the pandemic would improve enough to safely host Vuokatti 2021 on schedule.

"Sadly, it was not to be, but postponing the EYOF to December means the vast majority of the athletes who were looking forward to competing in February will still be able to participate later in the year."

It follows the postponement of the summer edition, now scheduled to be held in 2022 in Banská Bystrica in Slovakia, with the event being moved due to a clash with the postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

The Games were pushed back by a year due to the pandemic.

It was expected that 1,800 athletes from 48 European National Olympic Committees were set to take part in nine sports in February at the Winter EYOF.

The events on the sports programme are Alpine skiing, biathlon, ice hockey, snowboarding, cross-country skiing, ski jumping, short track speed skating, figure skating and Nordic combined.

"Flexibility will be the key," added EOC secretary general Raffaele Pagnozzi.

"Rest assured that we will do all we can for the competitors affected, and I am sure that, together with our partners, we will organise a fantastic European Youth Olympic Festival for Finland and for all the young athletes of Europe."

Mikko Salonen, chief executive of the Finnish Olympic Committee, added that the rise in COVID-19 cases made it difficult to allow the event to take place in February.

Although Vuokatti will host most of the winter events, the city of Kajaani will stage ice hockey events.