Puerto Rico, officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a Caribbean island, Commonwealth, and unincorporated territory of the United States. It is located in the northeast Caribbean Sea, approximately 1,000 miles (1,600 km) southeast of Miami, Florida, between the Dominican Republic and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and includes the eponymous main island and several smaller islands, such as Mona, Culebra, and Vieques. It has roughly 3.2 million residents, and its capital and most populous city is San Juan. Spanish and English are the official languages of the executive branch of government, though Spanish predominates.
Alberto Mercado Monserrate is a former Jr. Featherweight boxer who was on the verge of fighting for a world title at least twice in his career.
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.
Raymond Dalmau Pérez is a retired Puerto Rican professional basketball player and coach. Dalmau played in the Baloncesto Superior Nacional (BSN), the top tier basketball league in the country, for 20 seasons with the Piratas de Quebradillas. At the time of his retirement, at the end of the 1985 season, Dalmau was the BSN's all-time leader in points (11,592), rebounds (5,673) and assists (2,302).
Jorge Luis "Peco" González Rivera is a former Puerto Rican Olympic runner. He won many races and competed in many international events, such as the Pan American Games and the Olympic Games. In 1982, he set the all-time record for the Ponce Marathon which as of 2023 has not yet been broken.
The Puerto Rico national basketball team represents Puerto Rico in men's international basketball competitions, it is governed by the Puerto Rican Basketball Federation, The team represents both FIBA and FIBA Americas.
Luis Alfonso Rodríguez López-Cepero, known by his stage name Luis Fonsi, is a Puerto Rican singer-songwriter. He is known for his soulful and dance oriented songs, most notably 2017's "Despacito".
The Puerto Rico national baseball team, also known as Team Rubio is the national baseball team of Puerto Rico. The men's senior team is currently ranked 13th in the world. Puerto Rico is the incumbent Pan American and Central American/Caribbean champion, as well as the World Baseball Classic runner-up. The team will compete against Israel, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Nicaragua in the 2023 World Baseball Classic in March 2023 in Miami, Florida.
José Juan Barea Mora is a Puerto Rican former professional basketball player and current head coach for the Mets de Guaynabo of the Baloncesto Superior Nacional (BSN). He played college basketball for Northeastern University before joining the Mavericks in 2006 and becoming only the seventh Puerto Rican to play in the NBA. He went on to win an NBA championship with the Mavericks in 2011 before signing with the Minnesota Timberwolves, where he played for the next three seasons. He has also played in the NBA Development League and the Baloncesto Superior Nacional.
Puerto Ricans and people of Puerto Rican descent have participated as members of the United States Armed Forces in the American Civil War and in every conflict which the United States has been involved since World War I. In World War II, more than 65,000 Puerto Rican service members served in the war effort, including the guarding of U.S. military installations in the Caribbean and combat operations in the European and Pacific theatres.
Caterine Ibargüen Mena ODB is a retired Colombian athlete competing in high jump, long jump and triple jump. Her notable achievements include a gold medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics, silver medal in the 2012 Summer Olympics, two gold medals in the IAAF World Championships in Athletics, and two gold medals in the 2011 Pan American Games and 2015 Pan American Games.
Elmer Williams González is a retired Puerto Rican long jumper.
Javier Culson Pérez is a Puerto Rican athlete and Olympiad bronze medalist who specialises in the 400-metre hurdles. After becoming involved with the discipline in his late teen years, he entered the podium in some regional youth events, including the Pan American Junior Athletics Championships. Culson is a two-time silver medallist at the International Association of Athletics Federations's (IAAF) World Championships and an elite contender in the Samsung Diamond League, where he finished second overall in 2011. He has also garnished medals in events with lower profiles, including the Central American and Caribbean Games and the Ibero-American Championships. He currently holds the record as "the world's fastest man" in that category. Culson also competed at the 2012 Olympics in London winning the bronze medal in the 400-metre hurdles race. In the 2016 Olympics in Rio, Culson made it all the way to the finals of the men's 400m hurdles only to be disqualified by a false start.
The 2009 FIBA Americas Championship, later known as the FIBA AmeriCup, was the continental championship held by FIBA Americas, for North, Central and South America and the Caribbean. This FIBA AmeriCup championship served as a qualifying tournament for the 2010 FIBA World Championship in Turkey. Each of the top four finishers in the quarterfinal round robin qualified for the World Championship.
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.
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.
Jasmine Camacho-Quinn is a Puerto Rican track and field athlete who specializes in the 100 metres hurdles. At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, she became the first Puerto Rican of Afro-Latino descent and the second person representing Puerto Rico to win a gold medal. In the semi-finals, Camacho-Quinn set her personal best and Olympic record of 12.26 seconds, which is tied for the fifth fastest time in history. She won bronze at the 2022 World Athletics Championships.
Marileidy Paulino is a Dominican athlete sprinter specializing in the 400 meters. She won the silver medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, becoming the first woman from the Dominican Republic to earn an individual Olympic medal in athletics. Paulino took silver at the 2022 World Athletics Championships. At these competitions, she earned also silver and gold in the mixed 4×400 m relay respectively, running legs of 48.7 s in 2021 and 48.47 s in 2022. Since May 2023, Paulino is the 400 m ranked world No. 1.
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