It is a territory of the US, right? Are other US territories and those of other nations allowed to represent themselves?
It is a country in free association with the United States. It has its own nationality and so its own team at Athens.
A much better question is why does the UK have multiple teams. Four for football and IIRC six or seven for the Olympics. And the rugby teams are just bizzare.
Each organization (like Miss Universe) decides who they want to let in. There’s no controlling international body. They don’t go to the UN for the list of countries. The IOC’s policy:
Puerto Rico is a commonwealth. Other examples are the Virgin Islands and Hong Kong. And a bunch of other island states that I think are still controlled by other countries but I can’t look up right now.
I’m not sure about the colonies/territories of any other countries, but both American Samoa and the US Virgin Islands (both US territories) field their own teams in international/Olympic competition.
There was a story last year during the trial matches to determine what basketball teams made the Olympics, when the US team played the team from the US Virgin Islands. One of the players on the US team (Tim Duncan) is from the Virgin Islands, but when he had started to play in international competition (sometime in the mid-90s) the Virgin Islands only fielded a junior team, so he played for the US. Since then the Virgin Islands have formed their own Olympic team, but Duncan is now not eligible to play for it, because there’s some Olympic rule that you can’t switch teams once you’ve participated in Olympic competition. Anyways, Duncan sat out of the game rather than play against his countrymen.
Six or seven? One, more likely.
The Rugby teams aren’t bizarre. There’s England, Sctoland, Wales, and Irish teams, and then there’s a British team. The fact that these teams exist for both variants of Rugby is probably confusing.
For that matter, do they specify a minimum breakdown in this sort of thing? I just sort of assumed that if country X wanted to field two teams from parts A and B, it’s be ok, since that couldn’t give them an advantage, unlike countries X and Y fielding a joint team…
Re: UK. As we’re fond of observing “The UK fields as many teams as Russia, America China, and Australisa put together.”
Football is simple, divided into national teams for England, Scotland, Wales, N Ireland. It’s always been that way (well, with the exception of N Ireland of course…). This is the reason we never do well in the football at the Olympics - the relevant FAs can’t agree to send a single UK team, other than IIRC an under-21 squad.
As for the ‘six or seven’ teams at the Olympics - maybe you’re thinking of the Commonwealth Games, where territories such as Jersey and the Isle of Man have individual teams?
Further information: A country or territory with a National Olympic Committee can send representatives to the games. Non-nation territories with NOCs include:
Bermuda
British Virgin Islands
Netherlands Antilles
Puerto Rico
American Samoa
Palestine
Guam
Oh, and before somebody else corrects me - the Irish NOC covers the whole of Ireland, and it’s the Great Britain NOC (not UK).
Guess it depends on the event. For beauty pageants like Miss Universe it just depends. At one time Tahiti, Reunion, and Guadelope were able to send reps to the Miss Universe pageant. But now those countries reps will run for the Miss France title instead and the winner of that will represent France in Miss Universe or Miss World. It was the same with Miss Wales, Miss Scotland, and Miss England. Now they are all under one banner as Miss Great Britain. However at the Miss World they all compete seperately.
Each International pageant has their own ways of doing things. For example at both the Miss International and Miss World pageants there will be a Miss USA contestant and a Miss Hawaii contestant…go figure.
- Rugby Union (15-a-side).
The National teams from the British Isles are:
England (World Champions 
), Wales, Scotland, Ireland (covers both Northern Ireland + the Republic of Ireland).
They all play in the Six Nations competition annually, which also includes France and Italy.
They all enter the World Cup, which is every 4 years.
There is a touring team called the British Lions, which combines all the above teams. They usually visit New Zealand, Australia and South Africa.
There is an entertaining team called the Barbarians, which can basically invite any internationals. They usually raise money for charity, and deliberately include one uncapped player.
- Rugby League (13-a-side).
Err, I don’t know as much about this. :o
There is certainly a Great Britain side.
But Scotland, Ireland and Wales play in the European Nations Cup.
Ah well, can’t know everything!
There has been at least one case of multiple countries fielding a joint team. Just after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the various countries which were formerly part of said Union fielded a single team, which I seem to recall was referred to as the “Commonwealth of Nations”, or the like. Of course, there was a historical reason there, since obviously nobody objected to the USSR being a single nationin the Olympics back when it was one nation, but still, that’s a pretty big grouping of nations.
So are Virginia and Massachusetts (and a couple other “states” which I can’t recall off the top of my head). I wonder if they’d be allowed to field separate teams?
Oy, gevalt… how come I did not see this thread in its first life…
By parts:
A: Olympic “sovereignty”
-
The International Olympic Committee, the Miss Universe Pageant, the FIFA, etc., are PRIVATE entities. Who participates in their contests is determined by their rules and bylaws, in coordination with local entities which are their franchisees in the respective country/territory. Ever since very, very early in the modern olympic movement, the IOC has accepted sports organizations from non-independent colonial territories as its franchisees. (same happens for other sports, beauty-pageant and cultural organizations)
-
The IOC does lobby the jurisdictions where they operate to grant their franchisees (NOC’s) a protected monopoly status. Thus the US Congress passed the Amateur (there’s a joke for ya) Sports Act, by which USOC is the exclusive holder of the olympic franchise for the 50 States + DC plus any US territory that does not have its own NOC. So, Texas or California can apply to participate in the Beijing games, but the IOC will reject them outright.
-
IOC will accept certain political realities while at the same time being diplomatic about choosing their battles. Thus, the Taiwanese participate as “Chinese from Taipei” rather than ROC or Taiwan. Hong Kong kept its separate olympic franchise upon annexation. The US Unincorporated Territories and UK Crown Dependencies field their own olympic teams, but AFAIK the French Ultramarine Territories do NOT. Etc.
B: About Beauty Pageant “sovereignty”
Who the bugger-all cares. It’s a silly thing anyway.
C: About Puerto Rico and the Commonwealths -
The sub-units of the USA that style their political corporate entity as “commonwealth” are Massachussetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands.
*In terms of what this means geopolitically… it’s only a name. *
They could have styled themselves “State” “Autonomous Republic” “Bailiwick” or “Happy Fun Ranch” and the first four would still be part of the several States, the latter two still part of the Territories. There is NO part of the constitution or USCode that defines a “commonwealth” as a different legal entity from any other state or territory. The practice is to use the term “Commonwealth” for an autonomous or semi-autonomous territory that has a a full-fledged Constitution, drawn up by a locally-elected Constituent Convention, and ratified by Congress and the people (as opposed to springing full grown from DC) (a freely elected local government, tax autonomy, and US citizenship apply to almost all of them already). -
The Unincorporated Territories of the USA are, besides the already mentioned PR and NMI, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa and Guam. (Outpost locales with no real permanent native population such as Wake or Midway don’t count). According to Supreme Court precedent (Downes v. Bidwell) these are lands and peoples that “belong to but are not a part of” the USA. Yep, it’s separate but equal, but what can you say, it was the same Court of the Plessy case. A later case (Balzac) ruled that not even becoming citizens really “incorporates” you.
-
There are three legally officialized “States in Free Association” with the USA: the Republic of Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands, all in the SW Pacific. They are recognized by the UN as fully sovereign separate nations, under a special, mutually revokeable treaty with the USA. The Puerto Rican Popular Party, founders of the Commonwealth, intended for it to become a State in Free Association (and still aspire to it), and they went ahead and made the Spanish corporate name of the Commonwealth be “Estado Libre Asociado” – but political events resulted in that to this day we’re still a UT and they’re still trying.