Puerto Rico at the 2016 Summer Olympics
| Puerto Rico at the 2016 Summer Olympics |
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| IOC code | PUR | ||||||||
| NOC | Puerto Rico Olympic Committee | ||||||||
| Website |
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| in Rio de Janeiro | |||||||||
| Competitors | 40 in 15 sports | ||||||||
| Flag bearer | Jaime Espinal | ||||||||
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Medals Ranked 54th |
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| Summer Olympics appearances (overview) | |||||||||
Puerto Rico competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 5 to 21 August 2016. This was the nation's eighteenth consecutive appearance at the Summer Olympics.
The Puerto Rico Olympic Committee (Spanish: Comité Olímpico de Puerto Rico, COPUR) sent a team of 40 athletes, 13 men and 27 women, to compete in 15 sports at the Games. The nation's full roster in Rio de Janeiro was roughly 15 athletes larger than those who attended the London Games four years earlier, and also featured more female participants than males for the first time in Olympic history. Among the sports represented by the nation's athletes, Puerto Rico marked its Olympic debut in table tennis, triathlon, and women's indoor volleyball, as well as its return to taekwondo after 8 years, diving, equestrian, and tennis after 12 years, and road cycling after two decades.
Of the 40 participants, twenty-nine of them made their Olympic debut in Rio de Janeiro, including table tennis players Brian Afanador and 15-year-old Adriana Diaz, tennis player Mónica Puig, and New York-based taekwondo fighter Crystal Weekes. Meanwhile, eleven Puerto Rican athletes had past Olympic experience, highlighted by swimmer Vanessa García, who became the first woman from her country to compete in four Olympic Games; track star Javier Culson, who captured the bronze medal in the men's 400 m hurdles four years earlier in London; and freestyle wrestler Jaime Espinal (men's 86 kg), who pocketed his country's first silver in nearly three decades. The most successful athlete of the previous Games, Espinal was selected to lead his delegation as the flag bearer in the opening ceremony.
Puerto Rico left Rio de Janeiro with a surprisingly historic gold-medal triumph from the unseeded Puig, who became the nation's first ever Olympic champion by defeating Germany's Angelique Kerber in the women's singles, as well as its first female medalist in any sport. Meanwhile, two Puerto Rican athletes fell short to join with Puig on the podium, including platform diver Rafael Quintero, who rounded out his maiden Games with a seventh-place finish, and Culson, who was disqualified in the men's 400 m hurdles final due to a false start.
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