The Tokyo Olympics are finally happening, a year behind schedule, and Caribbean sports fans rejoice. How well do you know the history of our region at the Games? Try our trivia quiz, and check your score in the answers below!
1. The first athlete from the Caribbean to win an Olympic medal was Cuba’s Ramón Fonst, at the Paris Games in 1900. What was his sport?
2. Cuba also won the Caribbean’s first Olympic medal in a women’s event, at the 1968 Mexico City Games. What was the event?
3. Eight Caribbean territories have won Olympic gold medals — can you name them all?
4. Arthur Wint won Jamaica’s first ever Olympic gold medal at the 1948 London Games — in which track and field event?
5. What Caribbean territory participated in the Olympics on just one occasion, the 1960 Games in Rome?
6. Jamaica has won 78 Olympic medals overall — 77 in track and field events, and one in which other sport?
7. What Caribbean territory last won an Olympic medal at the 1928 Amsterdam Games?
8. Who holds the record as the Caribbean athlete to have appeared in the greatest number of Olympic Games, competing in eight Olympics over a forty-year period?
9. A question for longtime Caribbean Beat readers — check our online archive for the answer! Who was the first Olympic athlete ever featured on the magazine’s cover, back in 1996?
Answers:
- Fencing. After winning gold and silver medals in 1900, Fonst went on to win two gold medals at the 1904 Olympics in St Louis
- The women’s 4×100 metre relay. The Cuban team won silver
- In alphabetical order: the Bahamas, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago
- The men’s 400 metres
- The Federation of the West Indies. The team included athletes from Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago
- Cycling — a bronze medal won by David Weller in the 1980 Moscow Games
- Haiti — a silver medal won by Silvio Cator in the men’s long jump
- Sailor Durward Knowles of the Bahamas. He competed for the United Kingdom in the 1948 Games and for the Bahamas in seven subsequent Olympics, winning a bronze medal in 1956 and gold in 1964
- Ato Boldon of Trinidad and Tobago
