Why The Olympic Flag Is Five Rings And How They Got Their Colours

Featured image credit: PA

The Rio 2016 Olympics are quickly approaching, and while there's a vast amount of Olympic fever in the air, there is a bit of a downer on this year's tournament.

Amid fears of the Zika virus, potent water that could reportedly leave you ill for life, and 'uninhabitable' living conditions, there's question marks over whether this year's games will be any good.

Despite this, excitement for the games (more so the opening and closing ceremonies) is high.

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However, I'm sure none of us will sit around and pretend we're all experts in track and field, swimming and diving. In fact, the majority of us will know fuck all about the Olympics, but it's fun to watch with a beer, innit?

One thing that is always present throughout the tournament is the Olympic flag.

The symbol of five rings, sitting on a bed of white, is instantly recognisable - but I bet none of you will know what it represents, or how each ring got its colour.

The founder of the modern Olympic games, Pierre de Coubertin, created the flag back in 1914, which was the 20th anniversary of the modern games.

He took the design of the five rings from a stone found at Delphi, an ancient sanctuary in Greece.

Each of the five rings represent the continents that compete at the Olympics - Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and America.

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De Coubertin added colour to the symbol, with the rings being blue, yellow, black, green and red. Coubertin chose these five colours as every flag of the countries competing in the tournament features at least one of these colours. Europe is represented by blue, Asia by yellow, Africa by black, Australia by green, and finally America is represented by red. The white background represents peace and truth.

Overall, the flag is said to be a symbol of peace, goodwill, and global solidarity and tolerance.

If nothing else, this is an impressive factoid you can reel off at the pub when conversation is scarce. You can then get onto the inevitable topic of 'Usain Bolt is proper rapid, isn't he?'.

Words by Mark McGowan

Mark McGowan

Mark is a journalist at LADbible, who joined in 2015 after a year as a freelance writer. In the past he blogged for independent football fan channel Redmen TV, after graduating from Staffordshire University with degrees in journalism and English literature. He has worked on campaigns such as UOKM8? and IIOC.