Puerto Rico at the 2016 Summer Olympics

Puerto Rico at the 2016 Summer Olympics
IOC code	PUR
NOC	Puerto Rico Olympic Committee
Website	www.copur.pr (in Spanish)
in Rio de Janeiro
Competitors	40 in 15 sports
Flag bearer	Jaime Espinal[1]
Medals Ranked 54th	Gold 1 Silver 0 Bronze 0 Total 1
Summer Olympics appearances (overview)
1948 1952 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020 2024

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.^[2][3] The nation's full roster in Rio de Janeiro was 15 athletes larger than those who attended the London Games four years earlier, and also featured more female participants than men for the first time. Puerto Rican athletes made their Olympic debut in table tennis, triathlon, and women's indoor volleyball. Puerto Rico was also represented for the first time in taekwondo after 8 years, diving, equestrian, and tennis after 12 years, and road cycling after 20 years.^[4]

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 Monica Puig, and New York–based taekwondo fighter Crystal Weekes. On the other hand, the remaining eleven athletes on the Puerto Rican squad had past Olympic experience, including 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.^[4] The most successful athlete of the previous Games, Espinal was selected to lead his delegation as the flag bearer in the opening ceremony.^[1]

Puerto Rico returned home from Rio de Janeiro with its first ever gold medal in Olympic history. It was awarded to tennis player Puig, who surprisingly defeated Germany's world-ranked Angelique Kerber in the final of the women's singles tournament.^[5][6] Two Puerto Rican athletes, however, came closest to join Puig on the podium: 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.^[7][8]