Nauru participated in five Summer Olympic Games between its debut in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, United States and the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom.^[1] No Nauruan athlete has ever won a medal at the Olympic Games and the nation has not competed at the Winter Olympic Games.^[1] The nation participated in the London Summer Games from 27 July to 12 August 2012.^[2]

The two athletes selected to represent Nauru at the Olympics were judoka Sled Dowabobo and weightlifter Itte Detenamo^[2] Nauru, along with Barbados and Saint Kitts and Nevis, was one of three countries to send only male athletes to the 2012 Games.^[3] Along with the two athletes, the delegation consisted of their coaches Paul Coffa and Patrick Mahon. Dowabobo trained at the University of Bath.^[4][5] Detenamo was selected as the flag bearer for both the opening and closing ceremonies.^[6][7]

Sled Dowabobo represented Nauru in men's judo and was the oldest person to represent the country at the London Games at age 29.^[2] He had not taken part in any previous Olympic Games,^[8] but his participation at London marked the country's official Olympic debut in the sport at these Games.^[5] Dowabobo qualified for the Games after being chosen as one of the highest ranked Oceania athletes in any sporting discipline by the International Judo Federation, without having qualified.^[9] Before the Games, he said: "It will be awesome to be the first Olympic judo player from Nauru. I'm really excited about the Games."^[5] Dowabobo faced Navruz Jurakobilov of Uzbekistan in the round of 64 of the men's lightweight (73 kilogram) judo competition on 30 July.^[8][10] He was defeated by his opponent with a scoreline of 0001–0100 and the result meant he was eliminated from contention.^[10] Afterwards the president of Nauru's National Olympic Committee Marcus Stephen noted that Dowabobo was competing against a strong opponent and revealed that he encouraged his fellow countryman not to be antipathetic over the result and progress farther.^[11]

Itte Detenamo participated on Nauru's behalf in the men's (105 kilogram) super-heavyweight weightlifting contest.^[2][12] He was the youngest person to represent Nauru at the London Games at the age of 25 and had participated for his country in the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens and the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.^[2][13] Detenamo qualified for the Games based on his performance at the 2012 Oceania Weightlifting Championships in Apia, Samoa.^[12][14] His event took place on 7 August, and included 19 athletes in total.^[15] During the event's snatch phase, Detenamo was given three attempts. He successfully attempted to lift over 90 kilograms of weight in all three of his attempts. He then attempted 205 kilograms during the clean and jerk phase of the event, successfully lifting it on his first attempt. He did not succeed in lifting 215 kilograms on his second attempt, but was successful with 225 on his third.^[13] Overall the combination of Detenamo's highest scores in snatch (175) and clean and jerk (215) yielded a score of 390 points for 14th place.^{[n 1][15]} Afterwards, his coach Paul Coffa revealed Detenamo was carrying a minor shoulder injury and had been keen to perform well because of the athlete being away from Nauru for a long period of time.^[4]