Paris Olympics 2024 | The symbols of the moment: what do they mean?

Adorning every board surrounding Olympic venues, festooning every corner of Paris and flashing across the screen of sports broacasting channels— the Olympic symbol is ubiquitous now that the Paris Olympics 2024 are well and truly underway.

The Olympic Games, the flagship sporting event, also has its flagship symbols. The most recognised of these are the five interlaced rings of different colours, part of all Olympic flags, merchandise, sported on jerseys and by the official mascot. This, as well as other Olympic symbols have a lot to do with Pierre de Coubertin, often known as the father of the Modern Olympics movement, and the founder of the International Olympic Association.

We take a look the many symbols proliferating the Olympics scene, as we take a breather between the remaining sporting events.

See the live updates from day 10 of the Olympics here.

The Olympic rings

Perhaps one of the most widely-known sporting logos in the world, the Olympic symbol has five interlinked rings, usually in five different colours— blue, yellow, black, green and red.

The Olympic rings are seen at the Paris La Defense Arena where swimming and some water polo events will be held during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, in Nanterre, outside Paris, France, June 26, 2024.
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Reuters

According to the Paris Olympics website, the symbol “expresses the activity of the Olympic Movement” and represents “the union of the five continents” and the meeting of athletes from across the world at the Olympic Games. Each continent, however, is not represented by a specific coloured ring. According to de Coubertin, the five colours, along with the white background of the flag, represent the colours in the flags of all nations.

The rings were designed by Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic games, in 1913. He reportedly used the logo for the first time as part of a letterhead in 1913, drawing and colouring it in by hand.

This photograph shows the Eiffel Tower, decorated with the Olympic rings for the upcoming Paris 2024 Olympic Games, in Paris, on July 18, 2024.
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AFP

In the Olympic Review of August 1913, he explained the logo as follows, “These five rings represent the five parts of the world now won over to Olympism and ready to accept its fertile rivalries. Moreover, the six colours thus combined reproduce those of all the nations without exception.”

The Olympic flag

The rings grace another of the very visible symbols of the game— the Olympic flag.

File photo of Olympic flag

The first flag, with the iconic rings, was created for the Olympic Jubilee Congress in 1914 in Paris, which was celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Olympic Movement. The first Olympic flag was raised in Alexandria’s Chatby stadium during one of the sporting events part of the anniversary celebrations. It is now housed in the Olympic Museum in Lausanne.

The rings and flag were adopted at the Olympic Congress in Paris, where de Coubertin presented them on June 17, 1914.

The Olympic Flag is presented by the The Horsewoman at Place du Trocadero during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 on July 26, 2024 in Paris, France.
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Getty Images

During the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, the Olympic flag was carried from Pont d’Iena to the Place du Trocadero by Floriane Issert of the Gendarmerie Nationale. She rode a motorized horse down the Seine, garbed in silver armour and a cape decorated with the Olympic rings.

The Olympic flame, torch and cauldron

File photo: Greek actress Xanthi Georgiou, playing the role of the High Priestess, lights the torch during the lighting of the Olympic flame at Ancient Olympia site, birthplace of the ancient Olympics in southwestern Greece, on October 18, 2021.
| Photo Credit:
Thanassis Stavrakis

The Olympic torch and flame are traditions which have carried over to the Modern Olympics from the Ancient Games. The Olympic flame is lit in Olympia, Greece and carried in a torch to the host city by a relay between runners— on foot or by other means of transport. These runners can include athletes, retired sportspersons, local and international celebrities and important figures of state in the host country. The relay ends when the torch reaches the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, and the Olympic cauldron is lit with the flame. This marks the official start of the Olympic Games.

The Opening Ceremony of the Paris Olympics not only brought stars from various sports, like Nadal and Zidane together, but also pulled off a show that paid tribute to France’s historical richness and global importance.
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RITU RAJ KONWAR

This year, the torch was lit by the sun’s rays in Olympia on April 16, 2024. It crossed the Mediterranean Sea on the three-mast Belem, a ship first used in 1896, landing in the port city of Marseillein the South of France on May 8.

Around 11,000 people carried the flame across 450 towns in France, as it visited iconic locations such as the D-Day Landing beaches in Normandy, the Millau Viaduct, Carcassone, Palace de Versailles and the Loire and Mont Blanc valleys.

The flame also undertook a “Relais des Océans,” crossing the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans to reach Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique, French Polynesia, New Caledonia and Réunion— French overseas territories.

The torch made its grand entrance in Paris for Bastille Day on July 14 with military horse rider Colonel Thibaut Vallette, who won gold at the Rio Olympics in 2016. Accompanying the torch relay were soldiers, sailors, rescuers and medics, as well as as fighter jets overhead.

Hundreds of people carried the torch for two days in Paris, ahead of the Games’ start on July 26, including BMX world champion Matthias Dandoi, French judoka Clarisse Agbegnenou, and middle-distance runner Francky Mbotto from Central African Republic.

Jin, left, the oldest member of K-pop supergroup BTS, takes the Olympic torch, Sunday, July 14, 2024 in Paris. Jin will carry the Olympic torch in the area of Paris’ Louvre Museum after recently completing his mandatory military service.
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AP Photo

Tennis great Rafael Nadal and football giant Zinedine Zidane formed part of the torch rely. French footballer Thierry Henry, who leads the nation’s Olympic soccer team carried the flame down the Champs-Elysees, while Kim Seok-jin, the oldest member of the K-pop group BTS, carried the torch in front of the Louvre.

India’s first individual gold medallist Abhinav Bindra was also part of the relay.

A notable local inclusion was Ludovic Franceschet, a local garbage collector who touts eco-friendly practices, who brought the flame inside Paris City Hall.

After wending its way through the French capital, the flame made its way to the cauldron, which was lit at 11.24pm on July 26, by retired French athlete and three-time Olympic gold-medallist Marie-José Pérec and world champion judoka Teddy Riner (who has added to his Olympic tally this edition as well). The cauldron is located in the Jardin des Tuileries, near the Louvre, La Concorde, and the Arc de Triomphe.

Torch bearers French Athlete Marie-Jose Perec and French Judo Practitioner Teddy Riner light the Olympic Cauldron at the Gardens of the Tuileries during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 on July 26, 2024 in Paris, France.
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AL BELLO

It was designed by Mathieu Lehanneur in the form of a hot air balloon, in a nod to Joseph-Michel Montgolfier and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier, who designed the first hot air balloon. It is a “ring of fire” measuring 7 metres in diameter, with 40 led spotlights keeping it pereptually alight, with the organisers eschewing fossil fuel for electricity.

The cauldron, with the Olympic flame lit, lifts off while attached to a balloon during the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 on July 26, 2024 in Paris, France.
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Getty Images

The torch, too, was designed by Mathieu Lehanneur, and is said to reflect the themes of the Games: equality, with its perfect symmetry; water, with wave and 3D effects; and peacefulness, with curves and rounded lines. Steel giant ArcelorMittal crafted 2,000 torches ahead of the Games.

This photograph shows the Olympic torch with the tip of the Eiffel Tower in the background during the Olympic torch relay in Paris on July 15, 2024, ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. (Photo by ALAIN JOCARD / AFP)
| Photo Credit:
ALAIN JOCARD

Ahead of the Paris Paralympic Fames, the torch will be ignited again at Stoke Mandeville. After a relay, it will make its way to the opening ceremony of the Paralympics on August 28, 2024.

The first torch rely for the modern Summer Olympics was during the Berlin Games of 1936, when Carl Diem, the Secretary General of the Organising Committee, proposed that a flame be lit at Olympia and then conveyed on foot to Berlin.

In the case of the Winter Olympics, the first torch relay was held before the Oslo Games in 1952, with the flame being lit in Norway’s Morgedal valley. From the 1964 Innsbruck Winter Olympics, the flame has been lit in Olympia for the Winter Games as well.

Olympic anthem and motto

The Olympics have an official anthem, composed by Spiros Samaras and with lyrics by Kostas Palamas. It was composed for the 1896 Athens Olympics, and was officially adopted as the official anthem ahead of the 1960 Olympics in Squaw Valley and Rome.

The word “together” after a hyphen has been added to the earlier motto, which was made up of three Latin words — Citius, Altius, Fortius
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AP

The original Olympic motto was Citius, Altius, Fortius— Latin for Faster, Higher and Stronger. The phrase originated from a speech by Dominican priest Henri Didon at a schools sports event in 1881, and was later adopted by de Coubertin as the motto when the Olympic movement started in 1894.

The Latin word Communiter, meaning together, was added to the motto in July 2021, approved by the International Olympic Committee. The new motto thus reads Citius, Altius, Fortius – Communiter, which translates toFaster, Higher, Stronger – Together in English.

The spirit of Games can also be found in the Olympic charter, which says: “The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.”