Olympic Rings: History, Origin, Significance, Myths - All You Need To Know

Olympics are as much about sports as they are about tradition. After all, the roots of the Games can be traced back to over two millennium. Symbols have always been part of traditions all around the world and the Olympic movement ensured that it had one too. The visual ambassador of Olympics - the five interconnected rings - define this movement. (More Sports News)

On flags, on mascot, on stadium, on field of play, even on athletes, the Olympic rings are everywhere.

You are already seeing them and in a few days, you'll be seeing a lot of it. Before the 2024 Olympics in Paris begin, here is everything you need to know about the iconic Olympic rings.

History of the Olympic rings

The Olympic rings were created in 1913 by the father of the modern Olympic Games, Pierre de Coubertin. The logo and the flag with the symbol were adopted in 1914 and would have made their debut at the 1916 Games that were to be held in Berlin, Germany. However, World War I delayed the official debut of the rings.

They were finally officially launched as Olympic symbol at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium.

Significance of the Olympic rings

The five interconnected rings in the Olympic symbol stand for the five inhabited continents of the world, Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania. All rings are of different colours: blue, yellow, black, green, red and the background is white.

“These five rings represent the five parts of the world now won over to the cause of olympism and ready to accept its fecund rivalries. What is more, the six colors thus combined reproduce those of all nations without exception,” de Coubertin had said about his symbol.

Myth about the Olympic rings

There is a huge myth around the colour of Olympic rings. These colours are falsely attributed to each continent.

However, in reality, at the time de Coubertin came up with the design, the five ring colours and the background colour white were part of every single national flag in the world. To represent these nations, he chose this colours.