Panama at the 2016 Summer Olympics |
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IOC code | PAN | ||||||||
NOC | Comité Olímpico de Panamá | ||||||||
Website |
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in Rio de Janeiro | |||||||||
Competitors | 10 in 7 sports | ||||||||
Flag bearer | Alonso Edward | ||||||||
Medals |
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Summer Olympics appearances (overview) | |||||||||
Panama competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 5 to 21 August 2016. This was the nation's seventeenth appearance at the Summer Olympics, since its debut in 1928.
Panama Olympic Committee (Spanish: Comité Olímpico de Panamá) sent the nation's largest delegation to the Games since 1968, with the women outnumbering the men for the first time in its history. A total of 10 athletes, 4 men and 6 women, were selected to the Panamanian squad across seven sports. Artistic gymnastics and women's boxing were the only sporting events in which Panama had its debut in Rio de Janeiro.
Among the nation's athletes on the roster, three of them returned from London 2012, including taekwondo fighter Carolena Carstens (women's 57 kg), breaststroke swimmer Edgar Crespo, who attended his third straight Games as the most experienced competitor, and sprinter Alonso Edward, who was nominated by the committee to carry the Panamanian flag at the opening ceremony.
Panama, however, failed to win a single Olympic medal, since the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, where Irving Saladino became the nation's first ever champion in the long jump. At the Games, Edward improved upon his false start disaster from London 2012 to produce Panama's most substantial result with a seventh-place finish in the final of the men's 200 metres.
Panamanian athletes have so far achieved qualifying standards in the following athletics events (up to a maximum of 3 athletes in each event):
Panama has received an invitation from the Tripartite Commission to send a female boxer competing in the middleweight division to the Games.
Panama has entered one fencer into the Olympic competition, signifying the country's return to the sport after an eight-year hiatus. Eileen Grench received a spare Olympic berth freed up by Dominican Republic's Rossy Félix, who was ordered a two-month suspension from FIE for her acts of disobedience, as the next highest-ranked fencer, not yet qualified, in the women's sabre at the Pan American Zonal Qualifier in San José, Costa Rica.