A grand total of 986 athletes have competed for Cuba in 30 sports, according to the book Famous and Unknowns by de Irene Forbes, Ana Maria Lujan and Juan Velazquez. The following is a compilation of Cuba’s greatest moments in Olympic Games.

Paris 1900. Ramon Fonst was the first medalist 1900.- The fencer became the first athlete to compete for Cuba in Olympic Games. At age 17, Mr. Fonst won the first gold medal for the Caribbean island. In addition to that gold medal, he wrapped up his performance in Paris with a silver medal.

San Louis 1904. Fonst the untouchable 1904.- Once again, Ramon Fonst led the Cuban delegation of three fencers and one marathon racer. He left St. Louis with four gold medals, pushing his homeland to the third notch among a dozen contesting nations. Fonst grabbed three gold medals in foil and men’s epee, besides a fourth medal in team’s foil. The Cuban champ went untouched for two dozen rounds, a seemingly unbreakable record. With five gold medals in all, Fonst is the Cuban athlete with most titles in the history of the Games.

London 1948. Cuba gets medals once again 1948.- Following a limited participation in Paris and Amsterdam in 1924 and 1928, respectively, a Cuban delegation of 52 athletes traveled to London to compete in a dozen sport disciplines. Cuba’s sailing crew of Carlos de Cardenas Pla and his father, Carlos de Cardenas Cumel, were the runner-ups in star class yachting aboard their vessel Kurush III.

Melbourne 1956. The first woman 1956.- Sprinter Bertha Diaz became the first woman ever to take part in the Olympic Games. She reached the semifinals in the 80-meter hurdles race.

Roma 1960. Cuba closes in on the medals 1960.- After the 1959 Revolution, Cuba sent a small delegation of nine men and three women in eight sports. Enrique Figuerola (El Figaro) finished fourth in the 100 meters dash. Carlos Ponce Pla became the first Cuban ever to take part in four Olympic Games, from 1948 to 1960.

Tokyo 1964. Cuba back to the medal box 1964.- The first Olympic Games ever held in Asia marked the return of Cuba to the medal box. This time around, El Figaro snatched the silver medal in the 100 meters dash, crossing the wire behind American sprinter Bob Hayes.

Mexico 1968. Cuba on the way up 1968- The first medal for female athletes went to Miguelina Cobian, Violeta Quesada, Fulgencia Romay and Marlene Elejalde of the 4x100 meters relay team. The men’s team followed suit thanks to Hermes Ramirez, Pablo Montes, Enrique Figuerola and Juan Morales. Boxers basked in the limelight for the first time as light welter Enrique Regueiferos and Rolando Garbey in the 71 Kg division won the silver medals.

Munich 1972: Boxing opened up the golden path and the men’s basketball team grabbed the bronze 1972.- Boxers won their first three titles and the men’s basketball team wrapped up the best performance of any Cuban team ever. Super heavyweight Teofilo Stevenson started out a string of consecutive wins in Olympic Games. Bantamweight Orlando Martinez won the first gold medal for any Cuban athlete after the 1959 Revolution. The third medal went to welterweight Emilio Correa. Heavyweight Gilberto Carrillo and flyweight Douglas Rodriguez walked off with the bronze medals. In track and field, Silvia Chivas set a new junior world record in the women’s 100 meters dash. A day later, she finished third in the grand finale, snaring the first medal ever for any Cuban women in individual competitions. Chivas, Fulgencia Romay, Marlene Elejalde and Carmen Valdes came back home with the bronze medals in the 4x100 women’s relay.

Montreal 1976. Juantorena’s double gold and Cuba finished eighth 1976.- Alberto Juantorena went down in the record books of track and field after going gold in the 400-meter and 800-meter races. Cuba cracked the top-ten plateau in the medal box for the first time. Juantonera dominated the 800 meters with a new world record of 1.43.50. Four days later, he won the 400 meters with a new Olympic record of 44.26. Stevenson rolled over his super heavyweight opponents, while mini flyweight Jorge Hernandez and featherweight Angel Herrera rounded out the golden trio. Cuba’s judo celebrated its first gold medal ever with Hector Rodriguez in the 63 kg division. The men’s volleyball team won the bronze medal.

Moscow 1980. Stevenson won his third Olympic title 1980.- Teofilo Stevenson reached out and touched the sky with his fists as he won his third consecutive Olympic gold medal, thus matching Hungarian heavyweight Lazslo Papp, the only two pugs to have achieved such a deed until that moment. In another memorable day, Maria Caridad Colon won the gold medal in women’s javelin throw and became the first Latin American women ever to win an Olympic title. Weightlifter Daniel Nuñez set a new world record in the 56 kg division, the first ever for Cuban weightlifters. Basketball player Ruperto Herrera, fencers Manuel Ortiz and Margarita Rodriguez, wrestler Jose Ramos and water polo players Oscar Periche and Jorge Rizo joined Carlos de Cardenas Pla as the only Cuban athletes ever who have attended four Olympic Games. These were the Olympic Games eventually boycotted by the United States. Cuba finished fourth in the medal box with 20 prizes overall (eight gold, seven silver and five bronze)

Barcelona 1992. Cuba returns to the Games with its best performance ever 1992.- After skipping the 1984 and 1988 Olympics in Los Angeles and Seoul, respectively, Cuba returned to the Games with a bang: 31 medals (fourteen gold, six silver and eleven bronze) for a jaw-dropping fifth place in the medal box among 173 nations. Boxing won half of all titles and heavyweight Felix Savon teed off his golden streak. The other winning Cuban boxers were mini flyweight Rogelio Marcelo, bantamweight Joel Casamayor, light welterweight Hector Vinent, medium lightweight Juan Carlos Lemus, light heavyweight Ariel Hernandez and super heavyweight Roberto Balado. Led by Mireya Luis, the so-called “Amazing Caribbean Brown Girls” swept the U.S. women’s volleyball team in the gold medal game. Cuba dominated the debut of baseball in Olympic Games, while Javier Sotomayor, the best high jumper of all time, added the Olympic title to his long list of wins worldwide. Discus thrower Martiza Marten brought back home a surprising gold medal. Estela Rodriguez lost her final combat in the 72 kg division and brought to Cuba the first Olympic medal for the women’s judo team. Odalys Reve went gold in the 66 kg division, while Druilis Gonzalez (56 kg) and Amarilys Savon (48) nabbed the bronze medals. Wrestling churned out the first medals with freestyle gladiator Alejandro Puerto in the 57 kg division and classical wrestler Hector Milian in the 100 kg division. Cuba’s 4x100 relay team of Andres Simon, Joel Lamelas, Joel Isasi and Jorge Luis Aguilera won the bronze medal, crossing the wire behind the U.S. and Nigeria. Ana Fidelia Quirot was the bronze medalist in the women’s 800 meters. The men’s 4x400 relay team (Roberto Hernandez, Lazaro Martinez, Hector Herrera and Norberto Tellez) astounded all experts after beating the British team for the silver medals.

Atlanta 1996. Falcon and Bent nabbed the first medals in swimming 1996.- Backstroke swimmers Rodolfo Falcon and Neisser Bent were runner-up and bronze medalist, respectively, in the 100-meter race. Cuban heavyweight Felix Savon, the women’s volleyball team and the national baseball squad repeated their victories of four years ago in Barcelona, propelling Cuba to the eighth spot in the medal box with a final tally of 25 prizes (nine gold, eight silver and eight bronze). Right on the heels of a terrible home accident in January 1993, sprinter Ana Fidelia Quirot went silver in the 800 meters. Boxers Maikro Romero, Hector Vinent and Ariel Hernandez, female judoka Driulis Gonzalez, classic wrestler Filiberto Azcuy and weightlifter Pablo Lara also grabbed gold medals.

Sydney 2000. Savon and the women’s volleyball team rounded their triple crowns. 2000.- Felix Savon and the women’s volleyball team won their third Olympic titles in a row. Savon sealed his third heavyweight crown after beating Russian pugilist Soultanahmed Ibzagoinor, thus joining Teofilo Stevenson and Hungarian Lazlo Papp as the only prizefighters ever with three Olympic gold medals. The nail-biting gold medal match between the Cuban and Russian women’s volleyball teams gave the island nation’s Brown Girls their third straight Olympic title. Regla Bell, Regla Torres, Mireya Luis, Marlenys Costa, Lily Izquierdo, Raysa O'Farril and Ana Ibis Fernandez were members of the three-time Olympic winners, later on picked as the Best Team of the Century. Long jumper Ivan Pedroso snatched the gold medal from Aussie sensation Jay Taurima with an 8.55-meter jump. Anier Garcia shattered the Americans’ supremacy in the 110-meter hurdles race, while Javier Sotomayor closed his Olympic appearances with a silver medal. Legna Verdecia (52 kg division)) and Sibelis Veranes (70 kg) kept up the good pace of female judokas, though Driulis Gonzalez caved in during the gold medal match. She’s the only Cuban judoka to win three medals (a gold, a silver and a bronze).

Classic wrestler Filiberto Azcuy became the first Latin American gladiator to win back-to-back gold medals. Juan Luis Maren went silver in the 63 kg division, his third prize in as many Games. Taekwando’s big break couldn’t be any brighter: Angel Volodia Matos won the gold medal and Urbia Melendez (female category) was the silver medalist. The national baseball team, the defending champions of Atlanta 1996, lost to the Americans and wound up with the silver medals. With 29 medals (eleven gold, eleven silver and seven bronze), the island nation finished ninth in the medal box. In all, Cuba has grabbed 115 medals in Olympic Games (56 gold, 47 silver and 41 bronze), with 102 of those medals chalked up after the 1959 Revolution.