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The Olympic rings hide the colours of every national flag

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Coubertin chose the five ring colours plus white for a clever reason: together they reproduce at least one colour from every nation's flag.

Verified · Comite International Pierre de Coubertin

Pierre de Coubertin designed the five-ring emblem in 1913 and unveiled it at the 1914 Paris Congress marking the Olympic movement’s 20th anniversary. The interlaced rings stand for the five parts of the world united by the Games - not for any single continent each.

The colours were chosen with deliberate diplomacy. The five hues - blue, yellow, black, green and red - plus the white background were picked because, taken together, at least one of them appears in the flag of every competing nation. No ring “belongs” to a particular continent.

That is why the symbol has worn so well: it was engineered to leave no country out. The rings first flew over a Games at Antwerp in 1920, and have since become one of the most recognised symbols on Earth.

Six colours, chosen so that every flag in the world could see itself in the flag of the Games.

1913
designed
6
colours used (incl. white)
Antwerp 1920
first flown at a Games

Sources & references

2 references

Well-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.

1 Comite International Pierre de Coubertin institution “At least one of the five colours could be found in the national flag of the nations which had competed at the Olympic Games. Coubertin designed the flag in 1913 and unveiled it at the 1914 Olympic Congress in Paris.” coubertin.org ↗
2 Encyclopædia Britannica Encyclopedia “Those five colours and white were chosen because they incorporated the colours of all national flags in existence at the time the Olympic flag was created. The flag features five equal interlocking rings of blue, dark yellow, black, green, and red on a white background.” britannica.com ↗
✓ Last reviewed Jun 6, 2026

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