South Sudan at the 2016 Summer Olympics
| South Sudan at the 2016 Summer Olympics |
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| IOC code | SSD | ||||||||
| NOC | South Sudan National Olympic Committee | ||||||||
| in Rio de Janeiro | |||||||||
| Competitors | 3 in 1 sport | ||||||||
| Flag bearer | Guor Marial | ||||||||
| Medals |
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| Summer Olympics appearances (overview) | |||||||||
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| Other related appearances | |||||||||
 Sudan (1960–2008) Independent Olympic Participants (2012) |
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South Sudan competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 5 to 21 August 2016. South Sudan had been an independent nation since 2011, but its civil war had delayed its membership with the International Olympic Committee until 2015, making 2016 its first official appearance at the Olympic Games. The country was offered three universality placements in athletics, as no South Sudanese athletes met the Olympic qualifying standards prior to the Games. Three athletes, two men and one woman, competed in three track and field events, but did not win any medals. The sole woman, Margret Rumat Hassan, was given a spot eight days prior to the start of the Games that had been allotted previously to Mangar Makur Chuot. This change was against the advice of the South Sudan Athletics Federation and was due allegedly to pressure from Samsung, for whom Hassan had appeared in an advertisement. The flagbearer for both the opening and closing ceremony was Guor Marial, a marathon runner who, then unable to represent South Sudan, had competed as an Independent Olympic Athlete in 2012. Five South Sudanese nationals also competed as members of the Refugee Olympic Team.
South Sudan gained its independence from Sudan in 2011, but the South Sudanese Civil War made it difficult for the nation to garner the support of five sport federations as required for its National Olympic Committee to gain recognition by the International Olympic Committee.Guor Marial, a South Sudanese refugee living in the United States, competed in the men's marathon at the 2012 Summer Olympics, but did so as an Independent Olympic Athlete after refusing to compete for Sudan. South Sudan became the 206th IOC member in August 2015, with the affiliations of track and field, basketball, association football, handball, judo, table tennis, and taekwondo. The nation chose Marial at its flagbearer for both the opening and closing ceremonies.
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