Olympic Logos

Well, one factor in the IOC's decision about the 2016 Olympics might have been the respective choice of Olympic Logos. And I think we can all agree, hands down, that Rio de Janeiro won that competition hands down.


No, really, Madrid. Put your hand down.

An Adventure in Symbology, Part 2: THE RINGS

The Olympic Rings: just the sight of those five wants to make you start humming that triumphant John Williams trumpet solo, doesn't it? But the real story behind the symbol is full of intrigue and falsehoods, everything from the false involvement of Swiss psychiatrists to faked ancient symbolism. Just smell that Adventure History starting to cook!

Let's explore, shall we?

The five-ringed symbol we all know and love was initially brought before the world Congress of 1914 (back when they could take anything called "the world Congress" seriously) to "represent the five parts of the world which now are won over to Olympism and willing to accept healthy competition." (That's the problem with those damn penguins-- they play too damn dirty.)

The six colors are meant to represent the flags of the world, with at least one color appearing on every flag in the world. Not all at the same time, clearly. Otherwise we would have many more amazing technicolor flags. We can't all be as cool as Ethiopia.

Initially, the colors were assigned to very specific flags. The blue was for Sweden, the blue and white was for Greece, blue, white, and red were for the English, American, German, Belgian, Italian, and Hungarian flags. The yellow and red were for the Spanish flag (with the Brazilian and Australian innovations, whatever the hell that means). Also Japan and China. As Coubertin himself wrote, "Voilá vraiment un embléme international!" (The exclamation point is mine.)

I just want you all to know that I just translated that from French. I don't speak French. I sacrifice so much for you people. FYI.

The countries that Coubertin listed are significant for what they omitted. South Africa, for instance, was not mentioned, although South African athletes had competed at every Olympic games since 1896. (Upcoming blog post alert: Imperialism and the Olympics, YAY.)

Wikipedia infers that the original interlocked ring design originally came from Carl Jung (yes, that Carl Jung) because somebody doesn't know how to read academic texts. Jung's involvement is, in fact, a lie. The good doctor merely enjoyed the nature of interlocking rings in general, not necessarily the Olympic symbol in particular. This is actually what the official Olympic pamphlet says:

Circles, after all, connote wholeness (as we are told by the psychologist Karl Jung), the interlocking of them, continuity.

Oh, Wikipedia, when will you tell me true facts? I was all excited, too, because that Carl Jung reference was really cool. Damn my academic training and my propensity to look at primary sources!

Anyway, back to the rings.

For the great big 1936 torch relay (we discussed this in Part 1, if you recall), the Germans decided to go all out, visiting all kinds of historic Greek sites. With a flair for drama and ancient symbolism, the organizers carved the five rings into an ancient pillar at Delphi (as in "the Oracles at").

Nazis are vandalizing ancient treasures?!

Where is Indiana Jones when you need him?

In the 1950s, two historians visited Delphi, found the stone, and thought they had unearthed a crucial link from the past. In their history of the ancient Olympic games, they mistakenly reported that they had found an authentic relic. Whoops!

This reference was then spread by people too lazy to figure out (as Paul Harvey would say) the Rest of the Story. But now you know.

Ultimately, the appeal of the Olympic rings lies not in their ancient history, nor their more recent slightly imperialist history, nor their tenuous ties to significant Swiss psychiatrists. The five rings represent an image that is indelibly burned into the brains of billions across the globe: the symbol itself constitutes some common knowledge that the whole world shares.

Plus, it's just so easy to riff off the image, be it for the purpose of parody, protest, or ceremony.

Stately!

Image sources: Wikipedia, bbc.co.uk, chinadaily.co.cn, laphamsquarterly.org, tribuneindia.com

References: "This Great Symbol: Tricks of History" by Robert Knight Barney, Wikipedia (though it gave me lies), vancouver2010.com/en

An Adventure in Symbology, Part 1: THE FLAME

The Olympics Games are at their core a display of superb athleticism, clearly, but their mission is to serve a far loftier goal. The Olympics symbolize peace and international cooperation, and it has totally worked! Since 1896 we haven't had any global conflicts! ...Or, like, two World Wars. But let's leave that discussion for a later date, for today-- the Olympic Flame made its way to Argentina!

Each Olympic Season, the Torch is lit in Ancient Olympia in a very strange ceremony involving solar power and togas. No, really...

Back in the back in the day, in Ancient Greece, the Olympics were a time of relative peace in a violent world. (You've seen 300, right? It was like that, only without the loin cloths.) During the games, the Greek equivalents of the IOC would light a flame in front of Hera's temple that would burn throughout the games as a sign of peace.

Apparently, flames in front of temples were kind of like voicemail back then:
"Yo, you want to invade Athens?"
"Uhhh... I think I saw the Hera Torch was lit yesterday. Let me check... yup. No, no fighting for at least another couple days."
"Dammit! I was really looking forward to crushing the Athenians today."
"Patience, Leonidas. Tomorrow is another day. Our slaughter can wait until they're done with the naked wrestling."
"Oooh. Want to go watch?"
"Hell yes!"

The first modern torch relay was during the 1936 Olympics, better known as the Olympics Hitler Hosted and Jesse Owens Did That Thing At. A German history professor (named Carl Diem) decided it would be a good idea to bring the torch back. Because you know what the games were missing? Fire.

When I was a kid, I had this idea that the torch was carried on foot all the way around the world. When I learned otherwise, a little bit of me was crushed. I mean, I knew that runners couldn't actually run across the ocean, but I thought it was possible that it would be carried everywhere, by foot, relayed from cancer survivor to middle school teacher in a big fluffy burning symbolic gesture of togetherness. Of course that's not true. It took Phileas Fogg eighty days to circle the globe, after all, and he didn't have a torch to bear. Well, not a physical one anyway.

Instead, the Olympics is a fan of using a mix of conventional transportation (like boats, trains, and buses) and really weird transportation (like dog sled. Or Rube Goldberg Machine). For example, in 2000, the torch was carried over the Barrier Reef. And by over, I mean in the water. Submerged, but designed to stay lit. Perhaps the most ridiculous stretch of the term "relay" was in 1976, where the flame "was transformed into a radio signal," and then, according to Wikipedia, broadcast via satellite over to Canada, where it activated a laser to reignite the flame.

Canadians are crazy.

This year, the relay has already been in some trouble. Everywhere it travels, the Free Tibet protesters try to, um, protest it. The routes it traveled had to be altered in San Francisco, it had to be whisked away in a bus in France, and someone actually managed to extinguish the flame in London. (So much for ever-burning symbol of peace and cooperation...)

But that's not all! It is slated to make stops all over, including in Pyongyang, Dar Es Salaam, and (this will be awkward) Tibet. Seriously, the torch is going over Everest. Which is conveniently located within the most controversial topic of the Beijing Olympics. Awesome.

Look at it go! Whee!

So, will the torch continue to be a symbol of international peace and unity? Or will it become the symbol of China's unhealthy relationship with human rights? Stay tuned!

Coming Up:
Why Are So Many People Angry at China?
AND
Political Protests and the Olympics

Sources:
"Greeks test Beijing torch lighting." Mirror.uk.co. 3 March 2008.
"How Olympic Torches Work." Howstuffworks.com.
"Olympic Flame." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_torch.
Olympics. Chris Oxlade and David Ballheimer.
"Argentine Torch Relay Unhindered." http://news.bbc.co.uk. 11 April 2008.