Colombia first participated at the Youth Olympic Games at the inaugural 2010 Games in Singapore. Colombia has sent a team to each Summer Youth Olympics and participated for the first time at the Winter Youth Olympics in the 2016 edition in Lillehammer. The Colombian city of Medellín submitted a bid to host the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics, but in a voting process in 2013, lost the games to the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires.

Colombia first formally participated at the Olympic Games in 1932, and has sent athletes to compete in all but one edition of the Summer Olympic Games since then, missing only the 1952 Games. Colombian athletes have won a total of 34 Olympic medals in eight different sports, with weightlifting and cycling as the most successful ones. Colombia is the third most successful South American country at the Olympic Games, after Brazil and Argentina respectively. The Colombian Olympic Committee was created in 1936 and recognised by the International Olympic Committee in 1948.