Bodyboarding is a water sport in which the surfer rides a bodyboard on the crest, face, and curl of a wave which is carrying the surfer towards the shore. Bodyboarding is also referred to as Boogieboarding due to the invention of the "Boogie Board" by Tom Morey. The average bodyboarding consists of a short, rectangular piece of hydrodynamic foam. Bodyboarders typically use swim fins for additional propulsion and control while riding a breaking wave.
Beatriz "Gigi" Fernández is a United States former professional tennis player. She turned professional in 1983 and is the first Puerto-Rican to be inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
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.
The Puerto Rico national basketball team is governed by the Puerto Rican Basketball Federation.
Jesús David "Jesse" Vassallo Anadón is a former competition swimmer and world record-holder 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. From 2004 to 2009, he served as the president of the Puerto Rican National Swimming Federation.
The Puerto Rico national football team is governed by the Federación Puertorriqueña de Fútbol (FPF). Puerto Rico's national football team is a member of the Caribbean Football Union and part of CONCACAF.
Lisa Maria Fernandez is a Puerto Rican-American, former collegiate 4-time First Team All-American, 3-time medal winning Olympian, right-handed hitting softball pitcher and third baseman, current softball assistant coach at UCLA, originally from Long Beach, California. She starred on both sides of the plate for the UCLA Bruins softball team from 1990-93 and won two National Championships. She continues to hold the UCLA records for career shutouts, WHIP and winning percentage. Fernandez established Olympic records in softball with 25 strikeouts in a game and the best batting average for a single tournament as a member of the United States Women's team; additionally, she is noted for having pitched in three consecutive gold medal games, getting a save in 1996, an extra-inning shutout in 2000 before concluding the run by cinching the 2004 medal in a 5-1 victory. Fernandez was named the #1 Greatest College Softball Player and is a USA Softball Hall of Fame honoree.
Juan Ramón Rivas Contreras is a Puerto Rican retired professional basketball player, and sports color commentator. Rivas was the third player from Puerto Rico to play in the NBA, and half of the first duo of Puerto Ricans to be active in the NBA simultaneously. Rivas has played in the NBA, NCAA Division I, and in the Puerto Rican National Superior League (BSN), with the Carolina Giants.
The history of Puerto Ricans of African descent begins with free African men, known as libertos, who accompanied the Spanish Conquistadors in the invasion of the island. The Spaniards enslaved the Taínos, many of whom died as a result of new infectious diseases and the Spaniards' oppressive colonization efforts. Spain's royal government needed laborers and began to rely on slavery to staff their mining and fort-building operations. The Crown authorized importing enslaved West Africans. As a result, the majority of the African peoples who entered Puerto Rico were part of the forced migration of the Atlantic slave trade, and came from many different cultures and peoples of the African continent.
Carla Cortijo Sánchez is a Puerto Rican former professional basketball player. She played college basketball for the Texas Longhorns and the Puerto Rican national team.
Antonio Miguel Sagardía-De Jesús is a Puerto Rican lawyer who served as Secretary of Justice of Puerto Rico, appointed by Governor Luis Fortuño and sworn in by Secretary of State Kenneth McClintock on January 2, 2009. He resigned effective December 23, 2009.
Raymond Gause is a Puerto Rican former basketball player. He was born in Memphis, Tennessee and played his college basketball with the UAB Blazers under Gene Bartow. At Alabama-Birmingham he played with Jerome Mincy and Orlando "Pipo" Marrero. In 1984 he moved to Puerto Rico and established residency on the island. In 1987 he played his first season in the Superior League, BSN, with the Bayamon Cowboys. The following year, 1988, under Robert Corn, he helped Bayamon win their last championship of the 80's. That same year he was recruited by the Puerto Rican National Basketball Team as a three-point shooter and specialist, and became the starting shooting guard for the next four years. He immediately helped qualify Puerto Rico to the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, Korea, at the 1988 Tournament of the Americas Olympic Qualifier in Montevideo, Uruguay.
Monica Puig Marchán is a Puerto Rican professional tennis player and the reigning Olympic champion. She is also a Central American and Caribbean champion and Pan American silver medalist. She is the first Puerto Rican to win an Olympic gold medal representing Puerto Rico.
The recorded history of women in Puerto Rico can trace its roots back to the era of the Taíno, the indigenous people of the Caribbean, who inhabited the island that they called "Boriken" before the arrival of Spaniards. During the Spanish colonization the cultures and customs of the Taíno, Spanish, African and women from non-Hispanic European countries blended into what became the culture and customs of Puerto Rico.
The World Surfing Championship at the ISA World Surfing Games its organized by the world governing body for surfing sport, the International Surfing Association (ISA), which is recognized by the International Olympic Committee.
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.
Tiarah Lue Blanco is a professional surfer from Puerto Rico who won the first place Gold medal at the International Surfing Association (ISA) Open Women's World Surfing Championship 2015 in Popoyo, Nicaragua and successfully defended the title by winning the 2016 edition in Playa Jacó, Costa Rica.
