German Rieckehoff (born German Rieckehoff Sampayo, February 5, 1915–September 30, 1997 in Vieques, Puerto Rico) is considered to have been the most influential president of the Puerto Rican Olympic Committee.

Rieckehoff, whose ancestors migrated from Germany and settled in the "Little Island", Vieques, was raised in a homestead by his parents. The sweet potatoes, yucca, corn, goats and chickens they raised provided for most of his familys nutritional needs. Rieckehoff also loved to go to the coconut grove and drink the sweet milk and eat the meat of the coconut. A relative, Carlos Rieckehoff , was an important leader of the Nationalist Party and it was only natural that German himself was a believer of the Puerto Rican independence cause.

Rieckehoff was very athletic and an expert swimmer at a young age. In school, he participated in many sporting events. It was during his university years that he became involved with the Puerto Rican Olympic Committee. Eventually, he became the president of the Committee, which also sent Puerto Rico's best athletes to compete in the Pan American Games and the Central American and Caribbean Games .

In 1980, the United States boycotted the Olympic Games celebrated in Moscow, Russia. Rieckehoff was against the boycott because he believed that politics should not get involved with sporting events. He was, therefore, denied economic support from the local government. Rieckehoff did however, manage to send one athlete to represent Puerto Rico in boxing, Alberto Mercado, who became the only American citizen to participate in the 1980 Olympics.

In 1982, the Government of Puerto Rico, headed by then governor Carlos Romero Barcelo, withheld economic support from the athletic delegation headed to Cuba, where the Central American and Caribbean Games were going to be held. The Puerto Rican Olympic Committee, under the leadership of Rieckehoff, had to appeal directly to the people for donations and were able to send the delegation.

Rieckehoff oversaw the construction of the "Olympic Village" in Carolina for the VIII Pan American Games, held in Puerto Rico in 1979 and he also oversaw the construction of the "Alberque (Hostel) Olympico" in Salinas. He donated the land for the establishment of the "Regional Development Center".

In the late 1980s, Rieckehoff traveled to Lausanne, Switzerland and at the International Olympic Committee Headquarters, he requested that the 2004 Olympic Games be held in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He pointed out that the success of the Pan American Games held in the island had proved that Puerto Rico had the facilities capable of holding an event such as the Olympics. The Committee took his request into consideration but, after some years of studying the situation, decided for Athens, Greece to hold the games instead.

Rieckehoff indicated in a speech that he feared that sports professionals were gaining more control than the partisans of the Olympics. He also believed that the salaried professionals and administrators automactically thought that they knew what was best for the Olympics, when in reality, according to him, the partisans were the ones with the proper knowledge.

On September 30, 1997, German Rieckehoff was in Lausanne, Switzerland when he fell ill. He was rushed on an emergency airplane but he never made it and died on the flight. His remains were returned to Puerto Rico, where he received a hero's funeral.

In his honor, the Alberque Olympico was renamed and is now known as the "German Rieckehoff Alberque Olympico". There is also a German Rieckehoff High School in Vieques and one in Virginia.

See also

• List of famous Puerto Ricans