Olympic history of Samoa

SAM

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Samoa , whose NOK , the Samoa Association of Sports and National Olympic Committee , was founded in 1983, has been participating in the Summer Olympics since 1984. So far, no athlete Samoas has participated in the Winter Games. Young athletes have been sent to both of the youth summer games held so far.

General overview

Olympic games

Samoa's first Olympic team consisted of athletes, weightlifters and boxers in Los Angeles in 1984. Samoan athletes took part in the following summer games in wrestling (since 1988), cycling and judo (since 2000), archery and canoeing (since 2008), taakwondo (since 2012) and swimming (since 2016).

The first Olympians of Samoa were the boxers Apelu Ioane and Salulolo Aumua on July 29, 1984. Samoa's first woman to appear at the Olympics was javelin thrower Iloai Suaniu on July 26, 1996 in Atlanta.

In 1992 in Barcelona Marcus Stephen competed in weightlifting . Stephen was a native of Nauru who had taken Samoan citizenship in order to compete in the Olympic Games, as his home country had not founded a NOK at the time. In 1993 Stephen changed his citizenship again after the founding of the Nauru NOK and started for Nauru in 1996 and 2000.

Weightlifter Ele Opeloge made Samoa the greatest success in Beijing in 2008. In the super heavyweight division, she initially finished 4th. In follow-up tests in August 2016, the silver medalist Olha Korobka from Ukraine and the bronze medalist Marija Grabowezkaja were convicted of doping and subsequently disqualified. Ele Opeloge moved up two places and received the silver medal. She won the first ever Olympic medal in Samoa. In London 2012 she reached number 6.

Youth Olympic Games

Samoa took part in the 2010 Summer Youth Games in Singapore with three teenagers . One boy and two girls competed in athletics, swimming, and weightlifting.

In 2014 in Nanjing , two teenage athletes, one boy and one girl, took part. They competed in athletics.

Overview of the participations

Summer games

year	Athletes			Flag bearer	sports										Medals
	total	m	w															total	rank
1896-1980	not participated
1984	8th	8th	0	Apelu Ioane	2	2	4th
1988	11	11	0	Henry Smith	1	1	7th	2
1992	5	5	0	Emilio Leti		2	3
1996	5	4th	1	Bob Gasio	2	1	2
2000	5	4th	1	Pauga Lalau		1	1	1	1	1
2004	3	2	1	Uati Maposua	2	1
2008	6th	4th	2	Ele Opeloge	2	1	1				1	1				1		1	72
2012	8th	5	3	Ele Opeloge	1	2		1		1	1	1	2
2016	8th	5	3	Mary Opeloge	2	2				1		1		2
total															0	1	0	1	115

Winter games

year	Athletes			Flag bearer	sports	Medals
	total	m	w						total	rank
1924-2018	not participated
total						0	0	0	0	-

Youth Summer Games

year	Athletes			Flag bearer	sports			Medals
	total	m	w								total	rank
2010	3	1	2	Iuniarra Simanu	1	2	1
2014	2	1	1		1	1
total								0	0	0	0	-

Youth Winter Games

year	Athletes			Flag bearer	sports	Medals
	total	m	w						total	rank
2012-2016	not participated
total						0	0	0	0	-

Medalist

Gold medals

So far (as of 2017) no gold medal

Silver medals

Surname	Games	sport	discipline	annotation
Ele Opeloge	2008 Beijing	Weightlifting	Super heavyweight	first medal win

Bronze medals

So far (as of 2017) no bronze medal

Medals by sport

sport	gold	silver	bronze	total
Weightlifting	0	1	0	1
total	0	1	0	1

Medal table

Olympic games

				total	rank
Olympic Summer Games	0	1	0	1	115
winter Olympics	0	0	0	0	-
total	0	1	0	1	116

Youth Olympic Games

				total	rank
Youth Olympic Summer Games	0	0	0	0	-
winter Olympics	0	0	0	0	-
total	0	0	0	0	-

Web links

• Samoa in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Samoa on Olympic.org  - The Official website of the Olympic movement (English)
• Samoan NOK website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Article in Portal Stuff from August 25, 2016