Luxembourg_at_the_2016_Summer_Olympics
Luxembourg at the 2016 Summer Olympics
Sporting event delegation
Luxembourg competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 5 to 21 August 2016. Since the nation's official debut in 1900, Luxembourgish athletes have appeared in every edition of the Summer Olympic Games throughout the modern era, with the exception of the sparsely attended 1904 and 1908 Summer Olympics, and the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles at the period of the worldwide Great Depression.
Luxembourg Olympic and Sporting Committee selected a team of 10 athletes to compete in five sports at the Games.[2] The nation's roster in Rio de Janeiro was also a replication to those sent to Athens 2004, but had an equal share between men and women with five each. Among the sports represented by the athletes, Luxembourg staged its Olympic comeback in track and field from a 12-year absence.
The Luxembourg team featured six returning Olympians. Five of them competed at London 2012, with the exception of professional road cyclist Fränk Schleck, who staged an eight-year comeback to his third and final Olympic circuit in Rio de Janeiro before retiring from the sport.[3] Other notable Luxembourgian athletes were swimmers Raphaël Stacchiotti and Laurent Carnol, table tennis player and four-time Olympian Ni Xialian, and world no. 44 tennis player Gilles Müller, who led the team as the nation's flag bearer in the opening ceremony.[1]
Luxembourg, however, failed to win its first Olympic medal, since the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, where middle-distance runner Josy Barthel took home the men's 1500 m title.
