Why colours of olympic rings

The five rings represented the five participating continents of the time: Africa, Asia, America, Europe, and Oceania. This is what the inventor, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, had to say about his Olympic symbol in This design is symbolic; it represents the five continents of the world, united by Olympism, while the six colours are those that appear on all the national flags of the world at the present time.

Although Coubertin might not have had a specific color in mind for each continent his intention was that the five rings do represent the five continents: African, American, Asia, Europe and Oceania. The idea for the symbol came after the Olympic Games in Stockholm , Sweden when around 2, athletes representing 28 nations from all the continents competed for the first time since the modern Olympic Games were resurrected in Coubertin was trying to create symbolism of unity and universality of Olympism by making the rings equal in formation and interlacing.

It is meant to embody a unified international world of equals representing the core values of Olympism : excellence, friendship and respect.

Also the meeting of athletes from around the world to compete for the sake of competing. In the year the IOC Graphics Standards announced a description of how the official version of the Olympic Rings with space should be produced. There are a total of seven official versions of Olympic Rings.

While the full-colour version of de Coubertin symbolises the universality of Olympism, the monochrome version of the rings serves as an alternate to the full-coloured version. The other versions includes — blue coloured rings against white background, yellow coloured rings against white background, black coloured rings against white background, green coloured rings against white background, red coloured rings against white background and white coloured rings against black background.

Significance of Olympic Rings. According to Pierre de Coubertin himself, the Olympic rings represent the universality and the spirit of Olympism. The five rings represent the world and the six colours including the white background represents the colour of flags of all the nations in the world without any exception.

Between the torch, fanfare and games themselves, the Olympics are filled with timeless traditions. Yet, there is no greater symbol for the event than the Olympic rings. But how did they come to be? With less than two weeks until the Tokyo Olympics commence, here is a quick crash course on the origins, meaning and history of the Olympic rings:.