Daniel Gregg Santiago is a Puerto Rican basketball coach at IMG Academy and former professional basketball player. A center, he had a collegiate career in the NCAA and NAIA. His professional career saw him play in the NBA, the Baloncesto Superior Nacional of Puerto Rico, and overseas. Santiago has played for the Puerto Rican national team since 1998 until 2014, including been part of the 2004 team that defeated the United States at the 2004 Olympic Games in Greece.
Sports in Puerto Rico can be traced from the ceremonial competitions amongst the pre-Columbian Native Americans of the Arawak (Taíno) tribes who inhabited the island to the modern era in which sports activities consist of an organized physical activity or skill carried out with a recreational purpose for competition. One of the sports which the Taíno's played was a ball game called "Batey". The "Batey" was played in U-shaped fields two teams; however, unlike the ball games of the modern era, the winners were treated like heroes and the losers were sacrificed.
Puerto Rico competed at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, from 13 to 29 August 2004. This was the nation's fifteenth consecutive appearance at the Olympics.
Jesús David "Jesse" Vassallo Anadón is a former competition swimmer and world record-holder in the 200 and 400 individual medley, who participated in the 1984 Summer Olympics for the United States. In 1997, he became the first Puerto Rican to be inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame. He was somewhat unique in the scale of his achievements as a swimmer, and in a tribute to his World Records in 1978 was voted Swimming World Magazine's "Male Swimmer of the Year". From 2004 to 2009, he served as the president of the Puerto Rican National Swimming Federation.
Maritza Correia, also known by her married name Maritza McClendon, is a former Olympic swimmer from Puerto Rico who swam representing the United States. When she qualified for the U.S. Olympic team in 2004, she became the first Puerto Rican of African descent to be a member of the U.S. Olympic swimming team. She was the first female African-American swimmer for the United States to win an Olympic medal. She also became the first black American swimmer to set an American and world swimming record.
Fernando J. Canales is a former freestyle swimmer from Puerto Rico and swimming coach. Up until the Beijing Olympics in 2008, he was the head assistant coach for men's swimming & diving at his alma mater, The University of Michigan, and also for the USA National Championship Team, Club Wolverine, home for numerous Olympic champions and medalists. He is a member of the USA Swimming's International Relations Committee as well as the United States' technical representative for the Amateur Swimming Union of the Americas (ASUA/UANA). He is an assistant director of development for The University of Michigan Athletic Department. He then was the head coach at Colgate University. In his first season at Colgate, the women's team took home the 2011 Patriot League Championship, and the men's team finished the meet in fifth place. In 2016 he coached his home country Puerto Rico at the Olympics in Rio. Currently he is the head coach for Pitchfork Aquatics and Puerto Rico.
Teófilo "Teo" Cruz Downs was a Puerto Rican professional basketball player. After playing college basketball, Cruz played in Puerto Rico's top-level league, the Baloncesto Superior Nacional (BSN) with Cangrejeros de Santurce, Indios de Canóvanas, Mets de Guaynabo, Cardenales de Río Piedras, and Taínos de Mayagüez. Cruz also played in Spain with Picadero Damm, and in Belgium with Racing Club Mechelen.
Puerto Rico competed in the 2008 Summer Olympics which was held in Beijing, People's Republic of China from August 8 to August 24, 2008. The American territory with a population of four million people qualified 22 athletes in eight different sports. The appearance of the Puerto Rican delegation at the Beijing Olympics marked the commonwealth's sixteenth consecutive appearance at the Summer Olympics, and its twenty-second appearance at any Olympic Games, since its debut at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, England. Of its competitors participating in events that involve progression by heats, six athletes advanced at least one round in their events, and two advanced at least two rounds, with Asunción Ocasio almost medaling bronze in taekwondo. However, there were no Puerto Rican medalists at the Beijing Olympics. McWilliams Arroyo, a boxer, bore Puerto Rico's flag at the ceremonies.
Pablo Restrepo is a former Colombian breaststroke swimmer. He competed for his native country at three consecutive Olympics (1980–88). As of May 2009, his is the only Colombian to ever reach an Olympic Swimming Final. He attended college in the United States at Southern Illinois University.
Peter Drake Rocca is an American former competition swimmer, Olympic medalist, and former world record-holder.
John Lawson Hargis is an American former competition swimmer, Olympic gold medalist, and college swimming coach. Hargis represented the United States at the 1996 Summer Olympics, and was a member of the gold medal-winning U.S. 4×100-meter medley relay team. In his twenty year coaching career, he was the head coach of the Pittsburgh Panthers swimming and diving team at University of Pittsburgh from 2016 to 2022, and had formerly coached at Auburn, and Penn State.
Puerto Rico competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom from July 27 to August 12, 2012. This was the nation's seventeenth consecutive appearance at the Olympics.
Elliot Chenaux is a former academic and competitive swimmer for Rutgers University who competed with the Puerto Rican team in the 1964 Summer Olympics. He also swam for Puerto Rico in the Pan American Games in São Paulo in 1963 and in Winnipeg in 1967.
Manuel "Manny" Huerta, is a Cuban-born triathlete. After emigrating from Cuba to the United States as a young man, Huerta began training as a professional triathlete. For the United States he won the silver medal in men's triathlon at the 2011 Pan American Games and in 2012 qualified as a member of the United States Olympic Team. In 2013, he left the US Olympic Team to compete for the Puerto Rico Olympic Team.
William Winfield Farley was a 1964 Tokyo Olympic competitor in the 1500-meter event, and an All-American competition swimmer specializing in distance freestyle events for the University of Michigan. He worked as an American businessman in the Philippines, Tokyo and Hawaii, and served as a swimming coach for over 25 years, best known for leading Princeton Varsity Men's swimming to six Eastern Seaboard championships and five Ivy League titles from 1969-1979.
Jorge Manuel Oliver is a Puerto Rican former swimmer, who specialized in individual medley events. As a first-born American, Oliver holds a dual citizenship, which made him eligible to compete for Puerto Rico at the Olympics.
Arsenio Alexander López Rosario, also known as Alex Lopez, is a Puerto Rican former swimmer and three-time Olympian who specialized in breaststroke and individual medley events.
Michael "Mike" Gonzales is a former United States decathlete.
Kris Kirchner is an American former competition swimmer who represented the United States in international events. At the 1979 Pan American Games in San Juan Puerto, Rico, he won a gold medal as a member of the winning U.S. team in the 4x200-metre freestyle relay, together with teammates Brian Goodell, David Larson and Rowdy Gaines. He qualified to be a member of the U.S. team for the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, but was unable to participate as a result of the United States-led boycott of the games because of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan.
Charles Flaherty is an American born alpine skier who competed for Puerto Rico in the 2018 Winter Olympics.
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