Sri Lanka participated at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, which was held from 27 July to 12 August 2012. The country's participation at London marked its sixteenth appearance in the Summer Olympics since its debut at the 1948 Summer Olympics, having missed only the 1976 Games. The delegation consisted of seven competitors: two athletics competitors (Anuradha Cooray and Christine Merrill), two badminton players (Niluka Karunaratne and Thilini Jayasinghe) one shooter (Mangala Samarakoon) and two short-distance swimmers (Heshan Unamboowe and Reshika Udugampola). Cooray, Samarakoon and Karunaratne qualified for the Games by meeting their respective qualifying standards; the remainder of the team entered through wildcard or quota places. Karunarante was the flag bearer for the opening and closing ceremonies.