Paraguay Olympic Committee (Spanish: Comité Olímpico Paraguayo) confirmed a team of 11 athletes, six men and five women, to compete in seven sports at the Games.[2] It was the nation's largest delegation sent to the Olympics without the men's football squad since 1984, and the first with a highest percentage of women in its history.
The Paraguayan roster featured five returning Olympians; two of them attended their third Games as the most experienced competitors, including table tennis player Marcelo Aguirre, and freestyle swimmer Benjamin Hockin, who represented Great Britain as a member of the relay squad on his Olympic debut in Beijing eight years earlier. Meanwhile, three other athletes competed at their maiden Olympics in London: single sculls rower Gabriela Mosqueira, Hockin's fellow swimmer Karen Riveros (women's 100 m freestyle), and tennis star Verónica Cepede Royg. World-ranked golfer Julieta Granada was selected to carry the flag for Paraguay in the opening ceremony, joining with rower Rocio Rivarola as the only females in the nation's history to accept the role.[1]
Paraguay, however, failed to earn its first Olympic medal, since the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, where the men's football team took the silver.
Paraguay has entered two golfers into the Olympic tournament. Fabrizio Zanotti (world no. 147) and Julieta Granada (world no. 135) qualified directly among the top 60 eligible players for their respective individual events based on the IGF World Rankings as of 11 July 2016.[5][6]
Paraguay has qualified one boat in the women's single sculls for the Olympics at the 2016 Latin American Continental Qualification Regatta in Valparaiso.[7][8]
Qualification Legend: FA=Final A (medal); FB=Final B (non-medal); FC=Final C (non-medal); FD=Final D (non-medal); FE=Final E (non-medal); FF=Final F (non-medal); SA/B=Semifinals A/B; SC/D=Semifinals C/D; SE/F=Semifinals E/F; QF=Quarterfinals; R=Repechage
Paraguay has received an invitation from the Tripartite Commission to send a men's double trap shooter to the Olympics, signifying the nation's comeback to the sport after an eight-year hiatus.[9][10]
Paraguay has received an invitation from the Tripartite Commission to send two-time Olympian Marcelo Aguirre in the men's singles to the Olympic table tennis tournament.[13]
Paraguay has received an invitation from the Tripartite Commission to send London 2012 Olympian Verónica Cepede Royg (world no. 136) in the women's singles into the Olympic tennis tournament.[14][15]