The colors signify five continents: Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe, and Oceania. According to Rule 8 of the Olympic Charter, “The Olympic symbol expresses the activity of the Olympic Movement and represents the union of the five continents and the meeting of athletes from throughout the world at the Olympic Games.”
As the flag is raised up the pole, and orchestra — often with a youth choir — plays the Olympic Anthem, which dates back to the 1896 Games in Athens, Greece. It was composed by Spýros Samáaras to words by Kostís Palamás, and invokes the "immortal spirit" of competition.
Coubertin first created the iconic design in 1913, at a time when the amount of countries competing in the Games were significantly smaller than today. The widely believed notion is that the rings and the five individual colours - blue, black, yellow, green and red - represent five inhabited continents, with the Americas counting as one.
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