CABO ROJO, PR — Every four years the sports eyes of the world are fixated on the Olympics. While I have been here in Puerto Rico my wife Blanca and I have been spending a lot of our busy time interrupted watching many of the Olympic sporting events on television. Puerto Rico has a good number of participants, but both Blanca and I love sports and love watching all the competitions and if a Latin American, or Caribbean country is participating we then are glued to the television watching the entire event.
This perked my interested in learning a little more about the history of the Olympics and the history of Latin American and African countries participation in the Olympics. The fact that this is the XXXIII Olympiads caught my attention and I learned and share the following
Every country that is participating whether they have the most athletes like the United States with a total of 600 participants, or countries like Nauru and Liechtenstein each sending only one participant all have an enormous amount of pride just to be participating. Every athlete participating in the Olympics is a hero back home and forever will be in their countries history books. Also, every country participating can show their pride to the world if their athlete sets a world record or wins a gold medal which entails their countries national anthem played while awarding the medal in front of an international stage.
Latin American and African countries who for the most part was subjugated by the very European countries that celebrated most of the Olympics since first Olympics in 1896 when 11 to 16 nations participated in Athens, Chile was the first Latin American country that participated. The first African country to participate was South Africa in 1904, but all their participants were white.
The first athletes of color to win a medal were black Africans in the 1908 Summer Olympics representing South Africa. Reggie Walker won the gold in the men’s 100 meters sprint, and Charles Hefferon won the silver in the marathon.
The first Latin country to win a medal in the Olympics was Mexico. They won their first medal a bronze for polo in the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris.
The first black African athletes from other African nations was Abebe Bikila from Ethiopia who won a marathon gold medal in 1960.
Cuba is the Latin American or Caribbean country that has won the most medals in the Olympics. As of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Cuba has accumulated a total of 241 Olympic medals, comprising 84 gold, 69 silver, and 88 bronze. Cuba has a particularly strong tradition in boxing, athletics, wrestling, and judo, contributing significantly to its medal tally.
One of the biggest upsets in Olympic basketball history was when Puerto Rico defeated the United States “Dream Team,” during the 2004 Athens Olympics. This historic game took place on August 15, 2004, in the preliminary round. Puerto Rico won the game 92-73, delivering a stunning upset against the heavily favored U.S. team, which featured NBA stars like Tim Duncan, Allen Iverson, and LeBron James. Puerto Rico’s Carlos Arroyo led his team with an outstanding performance, scoring 24 points.
Follow us on Social Media for updates and exclusive content
Instagram: @latinosportsoficial
Facebook: Latino Sports
Twitter: @latinosports
