Tajikistan (TJK)

As a former member of the Soviet Union, a few Tajikistani athletes competed from 1952 to 1988 for the Soviet Union. Tajikistani athletes were also present at Barcelona in 1992 as members of the Unified Team. During this time Tajikistanis won four medals, including two gold. The canoeist Yury Lobanov won gold (1972) and bronze (1980), hammer thrower Andrey Abduvaliyev won gold in 1992, and archer Zebinisso Rustamova won bronze in (1976). Tajikistan made its Olympic début as an independent nation in 1996 and has appeared continuously since.

At the 2008 Beijing Games, the country won its first medals, with a silver in freestyle wrestling light-heavyweight class by Yusuf Abdusalomov and a bronze in judo lightweight class by Rasul Bokiyev. At London 2012, boxer Mavzuna Chorieva won bronze in the lightweight class, the first medal won by a Tajikistani woman. At Rio 2016, hammer thrower Dilshod Nazarov brought home the first Tajikistani gold.

Tajikistan first competed at the Olympic Winter Games in 2002, and has since appeared in 2006, 2010, and 2014, but missed PyeongChang in 2018 and Beijing in 2022. It has only had two male Alpine skiers. Andrey Drygin competed in 2002, 2006, and 2010, while Alisher Qudratov appeared in 2014. Drygin finished 51st both in the 2006 downhill and in the super-G, the country’s best Winter Olympic finish though 2022.