Albania (ALB)

Albania’s National Olympic Committee was founded in 1958 and recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on 25 May 1959, at the IOC session in Munich. Despite this, Albania did not compete at the Olympics until 1972. The NOC then did not compete again at the Olympics for 20 years, returning in 1992, and has not missed any edition of the Olympic Games since then.

Albania has not won any medals but has had fairly good weightlifters. A few of their lifters have emigrated to Greece, and competed for that nation at the Olympics, notably Pyrros Dimas. Dimas was born in Albania, but won gold medals for Greece in weightlifting in 1996-2000-2004, and a bronze medal in 2008. Through 2022, the best result for athletes representing Albania was a fourth place by Briken Calja in women’s weightlifting lightweight class.

Albania has competed at the Olympic Winter Games continuously since 2006, but only in Alpine skiing. Until PyeongChang 2018, they had only two Winter Olympians, one man and one woman. Erjon Tola competed in men’s Alpine events in 2006, 2010, and 2018, while Suela Mëhilli skied women’s events in 2014 and 2018. At Beijing 2022, another Alpine skier represented Albania, Denni Xhepa.