The History of the Olympic Emblem

We all recognize the Olympic emblem. No words are needed. When you see those five interlocking circles, unless you've been living under a rock or on a different planet all of your life, you know what they represent.

The Olympic emblem was not part of the ancient Olympic Games. The emblem was designed in 1913, adopted in 1914, and first displayed at the Summer Olympic Games of 1920 held in Antwerp, Belgium. Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the Frenchman who founded the International Olympic Committee, designed the emblem.

The Olympic emblem is always displayed on a white background. There are five interlocking circles, blue, yellow, black, green, and red (in that order). The five circles represent the five continents of the earth.

The colors do not represent specific continents. There are a lot of very colorful and imaginative explanations about what the colors represent, but the truth is that the five rings simply represent the five continents. The Americas are all represented by one ring, and Antarctica isn't represented at all. There is no color assigned to any particular continent.

The idea behind the symbol is that the athletes from the five continents come together to complete in sporting events and that all of the politics and personal agendas be checked at the door, so to speak. Of course, everybody doesn't check their politics and personal agendas, and when that happens, the true spirit of the Olympic Games is violated. It's happened before, and it will very likely happen again, but the idea of a venue for athletes from all continents to compete is always there, and the Olympic emblem is always there as a reminder for the purpose of the Olympic Games.