Panama Enters the Paris Olympics 2024 July and August

Panama and Costa Rica are Central America’s top hopefuls at the Paris Olympics 2024 this July and August.  Central America is heading to the Paris 2024 Olympics with more than 40 athletes but has only won two gold medals in 128 years. Only Panama and Costa Rica know what it’s like to win a gold medal, while El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua have never won a medal. Panamanian jumper Irving Saladino in Beijing 2008 and Costa Rican swimmer Claudia Poll in Atlanta 1996 are the only ones who have heard their national anthem from the top of the Olympic podium. In total, Panama (1 gold, 2 bronzes), Costa Rica (1 gold, 1 silver, 2 bronzes) and Guatemala (1 silver) for a total of eight medals in 32 Olympic Games.  The last Central American athlete to climb the podium was the indigenous Guatemalan Erick Barrondo, second in the 20-kilometer walk in London 2012, who will be in Paris.

Central American countries are bringing at least 44 athletes to Paris.  The Olympic Games in Paris France start Friday July 26 and continue to Sunday August 11th 2024. On paper, Panama, with eight athletes, has the best chance to fight for a medal with sprinter and Pan-American champion in the 400 meters hurdles, Gianna Woodruff. She is a 30 year old athlete who won gold in Santiago 2023 with a time of 56.44 seconds. Woodruff was a finalist in the Tokyo Olympics, where she finished seventh. Also noteworthy is gymnast Hillary Heron, the first to replicate a sequence of legendary American gymnast Simone Biles in a world championship. Additionally, boxer and police officer Atheyna Bylon will seek to crown a career that includes an amateur world championship and a silver in the last Pan American Games. “We are a small country, but we have a lot to give, let’s dream big in Paris,” said the president of the Panama Olympic Committee, Damaris Young.