Among those who took the podium at this month’s Olympic Summer Games was USANA Brand Ambassador Monica Puig, who became the first athlete ever to win a gold medal for U.S. territory Puerto Rico.
Puig, a singles tennis player, is one of more than 70 USANA-sponsored athletes who traveled to Brazil for the 2016 Olympics, including fellow Women’s Tennis Association competitor Madison Keys, who took fourth place in the women’s singles event.
Several other nutrition-focused direct selling companies had a presence in Rio de Janeiro as well, with some sponsoring individual athletes and others backing entire national delegations.
In the final match, No. 35-ranked Puig defeated the No. 2-ranked singles player in the world, Angelique Kerber of Germany, in three sets to capture the gold.
“I still can’t describe how it feels to be an Olympic champion and to have won the gold medal in Rio,” Piug said in the company’s announcement. “The last two weeks have been incredible, and the support I’ve received from USANA and fans around the world means a lot to me.”
Piug is the only Puerto Rican female to medal in the Summer Games since the Caribbean island sent its first delegation in 1948.
Utah-based USANA sponsors more than 1,000 world-class athletes, collectively known as Team USANA, who have signed on either as distributors or dedicated users of the company’s nutrition products.
Look for more coverage of direct selling companies at the 2016 Olympics in the October issue of DSN.