The 2016 XXXI Summer Olympic Games in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro (5-21 August) are inscribed in the history of Azerbaijani sport in golden letters.

Azerbaijan was represented at the Olympics with 56 athletes in 18 kinds of sport, and it is the best result in sport of the independence time.  At the Games in Rio de Janeiro more than 11 thousand athletes from 207 countries fought for 306 sets of medals in 33 kinds of sports. Athletes from eighty-seven countries won medals and our athletes have set a new record by winning 18 medals in total. Our team won one gold medal, seven silver medals and ten bronze medals. Azerbaijan took the 39th place in general medal standings lagging.

With 18 medals, Azerbaijan took the 15th place among 207 participants and 87 awarded countries. Azerbaijan was ranked as the leading country due to won medals among Islamic, Turkic and Caucasian states.  When it comes to the size of the teams each country has taken to Rio, Azerbaijan emerges as the most efficient team. The country has won 0.3 medals per athlete, with its relatively small team of 56 athletes.

The Azerbaijan Olympic National Team was among the leading ones on certain individual kinds of sport. In 1997, Ilham Aliyev was appointed the President of the National Olympic Committee, and sport became a strategic field in the country. Since that time, Azerbaijan has been recognized as a country of sports in the world.   

In Rio-2016, Azerbaijan for the first time took medals in canoe, kayak and taekwondo, and for the first time reached the final in boxing. Azerbaijan's only gold medal was secured by taekwondo fighter Radik Isayev (+80 kg). Our taekwondo team won one gold medal, two bronze medals. They took the fourth place in general medal standings lagging, the first among CIS member states and the second among European countries.

Moreover, the Rio Games opened a new page in wrestling for Azerbaijan. The country sent 14 athletes to Rio, while they secured 9 medals in Summer Olympics. They won three silver medals and 6 bronze ones.  

Two out of five Greco-Roman wrestlers - Rasul Chunayev and  Sabah Shariati took bronze medals and kept Azerbaijan on the third place in general medal standings of the United World Wrestling. Three female freestyle wrestlers took part in the Olympic Games, and two of them  - Maria Stadnik (silver medal) and Natalya Sinishin (bronze medal) made Azerbaijan the fourth.

Our freestyle wrestling team won 2 silver medals and two bronze medals and according to the traditional United World Wrestling top list took lead over other teams and became the first.

Elmin Nur