First Black Athlete To Compete in Olympics (Haitian) Constantin Henriquez de Zubiera

With the 2016 Olympics around the corner, did you know the first black athlete to compete at the Olympics was Constantin Henriquez de Zubiera is a Haitian-born French rugby union footballer?

According to Champions De France (google translated from french) click Champions De France  to read in French,

Constantin Henriquez de Zubiera had an outstanding athletic career in France, before engaging in the politics of his homeland. He arrived in France in 1893 on the steamship La Bretagne, from Port-de-Paix, he enrolled at the Albert the Great College of Arcueil. Henriquez then start Zubiera brilliant medical studies. Alongside his schooling, very athletic, he enjoys rugby, or rather the “football-rugby”, as it was then called discipline. Henriquez Zubiera dream to participate, as some of his friends of Albert the Great was able to do, the first modern Olympic Games in Athens, organized in 1896 at the initiative of Pierre de Coubertin, but fails to be qualified.

Turned professional, he played in the biggest clubs, usually the 3rd line position, the wing three-quarter or three-quarters at center. He then picks up many titles, one runner-up in 1895 with Olympique de Paris and, six years later, the champion of the French stage. It is found in the France team rugby for the second edition of the modern Olympics. They stand at the heart of the gigantic Paris Universal Exhibition, which hosts over 50 million visitors. Nearly 1000 athletes representing 24 nations and twenty disciplines, alongside women participating for the first time in the competitions, acclaimed by the Parisian public. The France rugby team faces Germany and the UK at the Velodrome de Vincennes, before 6000 spectators. Winning their matches, Henriquez Zubiera and his teammates won the gold medal.

In October 28, 1900, he became the first African-Caribbean Olympic champion and this victory is also for France. He earns moreover one-second medal, bronze this time in the discipline of tug of war team. His name is now inscribed in the history of French sport.

Back in Haiti in the 1950s, he became Senator and engages in the promotion of sport in his country. It is the initiative of the Union Sportive Haitian and, with the help of his brother Alphonse, construction of Haiti Stade Sylvio Cator-opened in 1953 and still in service today.