Haiti at the 2016 Summer Olympics | |
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IOC code | HAI |
NOC | Comité Olympique Haïtien |
in Rio de Janeiro | |
Competitors | 10 in 7 sports |
Flag bearer | Asnage Castelly[1] |
Medals |
|
Summer Olympics appearances (overview) | |
Haiti competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 5 to 21 August 2016. It was the nation's sixteenth appearance at the Summer Olympics since its debut in 1900.
Haitian Olympic Committee (French: Comité Olympique Haïtien, COH) sent the nation's largest delegation to the Games since 1976. A total of 10 athletes, 7 men and 3 women, were selected to the Haitian team across seven sports.[2]
Eight Haitian athletes were born and raised in the United States, having acquired a dual citizenship to represent their parents' homeland at these Games. Among them were taekwondo fighter Aniya Louissaint, 19-year-old light welterweight boxer Richardson Hitchins, first female swimmer Naomy Grand'Pierre (born in Canada),[3] female hurdler Mulern Jean, male hurdler Jeffrey Julmis, the lone returning athlete from London 2012, and freestyle wrestler Asnage Castelly, who eventually led the team as the oldest competitor (aged 38) and Haiti's flag bearer in the opening ceremony.[1][4] While the American-born athletes shared their kinship ties with Haiti, freestyle swimmer Frantz Dorsainvil and weightlifter Edouard Joseph (men's 62 kg) were the nation's only homegrown Olympians on the team.
Before Rio de Janeiro, Haitian athletes yielded a tally of two Olympic medals, a silver won by long jumper Silvio Cator in 1928, and a bronze by a team of five rifle shooters in 1924. Haiti, however, did not win its first Olympic medal for nearly nine decades.