Olympic Rings

The Olympic symbols are icons, flags and symbols used by the International Olympic Committee to elevate the Olympic Games. Some—such as the flame, fanfare, and theme—are more commonly used during Olympic competition, but others, such as the flags, can be seen throughout the year.

The Olympic motto is the hendiatris Citius, Altius, Fortius, which is Latin for "Faster, Higher, Stronger". It was proposed by Pierre de Coubertin upon the creation of the International Olympic Committee in 1894.

Coubertin borrowed it from his friend Henri Didon, a Dominican priest who was an athletics enthusiast.

Coubertin said "These three words represent a programme of moral beauty. The aesthetics of sport are intangible." The motto was introduced in 1924 at the Olympic Games in Paris. A more informal but well-known motto, also introduced by Coubertin, is "The most important thing is not to win but to take part!" Coubertin got this motto from a sermon by the Bishop of Pennsylvania during the 1908 London Games.

The rings are five interlocking rings, colored blue, yellow, black, green and red on a white field, known as the "Olympic rings". The symbol was originally designed in 1912 by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, co-founder of the modern Olympic Games. He appears to have intended the rings to represent the five participating continents: Africa, Asia, America, Australia and Europe. According to Coubertin, the colors of the rings together with the white of the background included the colors composing every competing nation's flag at the time. Upon its initial introduction, Coubertin stated the following in the August 1912 edition of Olympique:

... the six colors [including the flag's white background] combined in this way reproduce the colours of every country without exception. The blue and yellow of Sweden, the blue and white of Greece, the tricolor flags of France, England, the United States, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Hungary, and the yellow and red of Spain are included, as are the innovative flags of Brazil and Australia, and those of ancient Japan and modern China. This, truly, is an international emblem.

In his article published in the Olympic Revue the official magazine of the International Olympic Committee in November 1992, the American historian Robert Barney explains that the idea of the interlaced rings came to Pierre de Coubertin when he was in charge of the USFSA, an association founded by the union of two French sports associations and until 1925, responsible for representing the International Olympic Committee in France: The emblem of the union was two interlaced rings (like the vesica piscis typical interlaced marriage rings) and originally the idea of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung: for him, the ring symbolized continuity and the human being.

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