Aruba at the 2008 Summer Olympics

Prior to the 2008 Games, Aruba participated in five consecutive Summer Olympics, starting with the 1988 Games . Participation in the Games in Beijing was the sixth for this Dutch colony. In the summer of 2008, Aruba was represented by only two athletes, both men. This is two times less than at the last summer Games in Athens, where Aruba was represented by four athletes in three sports. There were no women in the Aruba national team at the 2008 Games, which was the second such case in the history of the colony’s performances (the first was at the 1996 Games in Atlanta, in which Aruba was represented by three men) ^[1] .

On August 1, 2008, athletes from Aruba flew to Beijing aboard KLM flight 765. In addition to Vis and Roodzant, on board were trainers and representatives of the Aruba Olympic Committee, Edmundo Josiah and Chu Halabi. Aruba's Olympic Committee President Leo Maduro and committee representatives Marie Hsing and Ling Wong arrived in Beijing three days later. Together with the IOC representative Nicole Hoevertz, this group formed the Aruba delegation at the 2008 Summer Olympics ^[2] .

The delegation of Aruba arrived in the Olympic Village on August 6, 2008 ^[3] along with the delegations of Paraguay , Cuba and Tuvalu . During the arrival ceremony, the Chinese military raised the flag of Aruba and performed the anthem of the colony "Aruba Dushi Tera" . The delegation of Aruba and the managers of the Olympic Village exchanged gifts ^[4] .

At the opening ceremony, athletes from Aruba entered the field of the Beijing National Stadium 109th. , the only judoka in the Aruba national team, was the standard-bearer. ^[5] During the , swimmer Jan Roodzant was the standard bearer ^[6] .

was the only swimmer to represent the honor of Aruba at the Beijing Games. His trainer was Alberto Till ^[2] .

To prepare for the Olympics, Fyderd Vis flew from Aruba to Brazil, thanks to an agreement between the Olympic Committees of Aruba and Brazil and the reached after Aruba participated in the 2007 Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro. Vis arrived in Brasilia on June 4, 2008 to compete in the South American Championship. He later trained with Brazilian judokas in Sao Paulo ^[7] . Seeing Wes progress, the International Olympic Committee gave him a special invitation to participate in the Games in Beijing. Aruba's Olympic Committee supported the invitation, and Fyderd Vis became the second and last athlete from this Dutch colony at the 2008 Games ^[7] .

On August 12, Vis met with Chinese in the fourteenth meeting of the 1/16 finals. Aruba representative lost the match and did not reach the next rounds ^[8] .

A native of the Netherlands, , was the only swimmer from Aruba at the Beijing Summer Games.

Together with coach Ismail Santisteben, Roodzant spent the year preparing for the Olympic Games in Gainesville , Florida , receiving coaching support from specialists from the Florida University swimming team. On February 26, he returned briefly to Aruba, but returned to the United States a few days later to continue training. Roodzant was able to qualify under the FINA license, having successfully performed at ^[9] .

On August 11, 2008, the day before the competition, Roodzant held his last training session before the men's 100m freestyle starts. Roodzant sailed in the second qualification race ^[10] and won it with a score of 51.69 seconds. However, the swimmer from Aruba took the overall 53rd place among 64 athletes and as a result did not go to the next rounds ^[11] .