It’s been 106 years since “ice hockey,” so called to differentiate it from the game that’s played on grass, made its Olympic debut, the Winnipeg Falcons winning the historic first gold medal at Antwerp, Belgium in 1920, representing Canada.
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.”
The 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics’ early events continued on day -1 ahead of Friday's opening ceremony. After opening the games on day -2 as the first event to start competitive play, curling continued with wins for the U.
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.