Olympic history of the US Virgin Islands

ISV

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The Virgin Islands Olympic Committee is the National Olympic Committee of the US Virgin Islands . It was founded in 1967 and accepted by the International Olympic Committee that same year .

So far, the athletes from the Caribbean island have participated in eleven summer and five winter games. With the exception of the boycotted Moscow Games in 1980, athletes were sent to all summer games. Athletes took part in the Winter Games for the first time in 1988.

Overview

Summer games

Peter Holmberg, the US Virgin Islands' only medalist

The US Virgin Islands' Olympic debut began in Mexico City in 1968 with a team of track and field athletes, sailors and weightlifters. The sailors were the archipelago's first Olympians. On October 14, 1968, Rudolph Thompson and John Hamber started in the Flying Dutchman and Per Dohm in the Finn dinghy. 1972 in Munich he participated in boxing and shooting, in 1976 in Montreal in swimming and wrestling. The first woman from the US Virgin Islands competed in the Olympic Games in Montreal. The first female Olympic athlete was Shelley Cramer, a swimmer over 100 meters freestyle, on July 18, 1976.

The US Virgin Islands followed the call for a boycott by the US and stayed away from the 1980 Moscow Games . Fencers and riders first took part in Los Angeles in 1984 , followed by cycling in 1988 in Seoul . In Seoul, an athlete from the US Virgin Islands won an Olympic medal for the first time. The sailor Peter Holmberg achieved second place in the Finn dinghy and thus won the silver medal. The following participations were unsuccessful, especially since the Olympic teams were getting smaller.

Winter games

The debut at the Olympic Winter Games took place in Calgary in 1988 with participants from the sports of alpine skiing, tobogganing and bobsleigh. The first start in a winter sports discipline was on February 16, 1988, when the toboggan runner Anne Abernathy . The first men started four days later. The two two-man bobsleigh teams consisted of Harvey Hook and Chris Sharpless as well as John Reeve and John Foster. The ski racer Seba Johnson set two records in her sport: She was not only the first dark-skinned female ski racer in Olympic history, but also the youngest female athlete in Olympic ski races. The 1992 Olympic team in Albertville had 12 members, twice as many participants as four years earlier. However, the athletes here as well as in Calgary were unsuccessful. Also in the following participations no top placement was achieved. In 2006 in Turin , Anne Abernathy was registered for her sixth participation in the Winter Olympics. In training, however, she was so seriously injured in a fall that she was unable to take part in the competition. Anne Abernathy, however, holds some records. At 48, she was the oldest participant in the Olympic Games (summer and winter). She was the first woman who could qualify for six entries. She was the first female athlete over 50 to qualify for the Winter Games. In Albertville, she was the first female athlete to be equipped with an on-board camera. In Lillehammer, she was the first athlete to keep an online diary. In 2006 in Turin and 2010 in Vancouver they did not participate. It was not until Sochi in 2014 that the US Virgin Islands competed again.

Overview of the participants

Summer games

year	Athletes			Flag bearer	sports										Medals				rank
	total	Men	Women															Total
1896-1964	not participated
1968	6th	6th	0	Leston Sprauve	2	3	1
1972	16	16	0	William Peets	1	8th		1	6th
1976	21st	19th	2	Ivan David	3	6th		2	4th	2	4th
1980	not participated
1984	29	26th	3	Jodie Lawaetz	4th	9		1	3	7th		4th	1
1988	22nd	19th	3	Peter Holmberg	7th	6th			2	6th			1	1		1		1	36
1992	25th	20th	5	Flora Hyacinth	10	7th		2	1	3			1	1
1996	12	6th	6th	Lisa Neuburger	7th	2		1	1	1
2000	9	6th	3	Ameerah Bello	3	2			2	1			1
2004	6th	5	1	LaVerne Jones-Ferrette	2	1			2	2
2008	7th	6th	1	Josh Laban	3	1		2	1	1
2012	7th	4th	3	Tabarie Henry	4th	2				1
2016	7th	5	2	Cy Thompson	3	1		1		2
total															0	1	0	1	127

Winter games

Anne Abernathy , oldest Olympic athlete ever, five-time participant

Seba Johnson , first dark-skinned woman and youngest participant in Olympic ski races

year	Athletes			Flag bearer	sports			Medals			rank
	total	Men	Women
1924-1984	not participated
1988	6th	4th	2	Seba Johnson	1	4th	1
1992	12	10	2	Anne Abernathy	2	8th	2
1994	8th	7th	1	Kyle Heikkila	2	6th
1998	7th	6th	1	Paul Tsar	1	6th
2002	8th	6th	2	Dinah Browne	2	6th
2006	1	0	1	Anne Abernathy	1
2010	not participated
2014	1	0	1	Jasmine Campbell			1
2018	not participated
total								0	0	0	-

Medalist

Gold medals

So far (as of 2017) no medal winners

Silver medals

Surname	Games	sport	discipline
Peter Holmberg	1988 Seoul	sailing	Finn dinghy

Bronze medals

So far (as of 2017) no medal winners

Medals by sport

sport	gold	silver	bronze	total
sailing	0	1	0	1
total	0	1	0	1

See also

• List of the flag bearers of the US Virgin Islands teams at the Olympic Games

Web links

• American Virgin Islands in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• US Virgin Islands on Olympic.org  - The Official website of the Olympic movement (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Breaking Barriers. US Virgin Islands Skier Seba Johnson Races Against the Odds. In: Ski Magazine , February 1990 issue, pp. 15-16. Google (English).