African IOC Country Codes Trivia Quiz

Historically, the nation of Kenya has excelled in the athletics component of the Summer Olympics year over year due to their proficiency in ong distance running. Kenyans won their first gold medals for their nation in Mexico City in 1968 and have since also excelled in men's wrestling events. Kenyans Eliud Kipchoge and Jemimah Sumgong would go on to get gold medals in the marathons of Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and then Eliud Kipchoge would reclaim the win in 2021 in Tokyo (this time alongside Peres Jepchirchir). Both of Kipchoge's wins would be world record races.

Though many might refer to this nation as the Ivory Coast, its IOC abbreviation is based on its French name, Cote d'Ivoire. The nation started attending the games in Tokyo in 1964 but never won a gold medal until 2016 when Cheick Sallah Cisse took the win in taekwondo. Similarly, women's taekwondo competitor Ruth Gbagbi would win bronze medals not only on the same day as Cisse, but in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo as well.

The small nation of Guinea-Bissau, on the western coast of Africa, didn't achieve independence until the mid-1970s and didn't actually make an appearance in the Olympics until 1996, when they sent representatives to Atlanta for athletics and wrestling events. Periodically, Guinea-Bissau has also sent specialists in martial arts disciplines to the games.

The nation of Malawi wasn't always MAW. Before 1964, competitors from this small nation came from RHO (the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland), and before that they were under the banner of Southern Rhodesia. Athletes from this region have been typically known to compete in races whether they be track and field/marathons, cycling, or in later years, swimming.

In the twenty-first century they would commence their participation in archery (through Areneo David) and judo (through Harriet Boniface).

Introduced to the world stage in the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome Moroccan marathoner Rhadi Ben Abdesselam won the silver medal. It would be twenty-four years before the nation would obtain another medals-- two golds in Los Angeles, both in track events. Track athlete Hicham El Guerrouj would go on to win four Olympic medals including two gold medals in Athens in 2004.

Besides athletic events, Moroccans have also, historically, seen success in boxing events.

One of the earliest African nations to join the games, South Africa first appeared in an Olympic event in 1904 when they sent eight athletes to St. Louis, Missouri. They would win their first gold medal when Reggie Walker won the men's 100m race in London the next Olympiad. South Africa would be banned from the Olympics for seven subsequent Olympiads due to Apartheid but they would return in 1992 (in Barcelona).

Interestingly, South Africa is one of the few African nations also to appear in the Winter Games; they sent four figure skaters to Squaw Valley in 1960 for their first.

The acronym RSA stands for Republic of South Africa.

While the nation of the Republic of Congo is regarded as CGO, the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire, is COD. One of the largest countries in the world not to win a medal in its first fifty years of competing, the DRC has spread itself across a number of disciplines including athletics, boxing, judo, swimming, and cycling.

As Zaire, the nation sent a basketball team to the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, a rarity for an African nation. Back then, their IOC code was ZAI.

Nigeria made its first appearance at the Summer Games in Helsinki, Finland in 1952 and has since seen great success in events over the years. It won its first gold medals in 1996 (Atlanta) in the women's long jump and in men's football and it won another in 2000 (Sydney) in the 4x400m men's relay. Nigeria also started competing in the Winter Games in 2018 in Pyeongchang, qualifying in both bobsledding and skeleton; in both cases, the participating athletes were born in Nigeria but lived most of their lives in North America.

Libya entered the Olympic Games starting in 1964 in Tokyo when they sent a single athlete to the games to compete in the marathon. Notably, however, he didn't begin the race. Libya's capabilities in subsequent Summer Olympic Games have stretched from athletics to martial arts to swimming and rowing.

Commencing their Olympic tallies with a debut in Barcelona in 1992, the sparsely-populated country of Namibia, on Africa's southwest coast, found success in its first and second appearances at the games solely through Frankie Fredericks, a track star who took silver in both years in the 100m and 200m races.

It was a medal that wouldn't be nabbed again 2020 Tokyo when young Christine Mboma received silver for the women's 200m.