Challenge #79-Citius, Altius, Fortius

Challenge # 79-Citius, Altius, Fortius

This week, the Diva had a guest Challenger.. Rho Densmore who selected the up coming Olympics for her challenge...specifically the Olympics motto...."Citius, Altius, Fortius" translated "Faster, Higher, Stronger"!  I chose to design the rings...also including an Olympic event in honor of the swimmers in my own family, particularly my grandson and his dad....who knows what the future may hold????

This piqued my interest so I did a little research and found out some interesting facts about the Olympics:

The motto was proposed by Pierre de Coubertin on the creation of the International Olympic Committee in 1894. De Coubertin borrowed it from his friend Henri Didon, a Dominican priest who, amongst other things, was an athletics enthusiast. The motto was introduced in 1924 at the Olympic Games in Paris.

A more informal but well known motto, also introduced by De Coubertin, is "The most important thing is not to win but to take part!" De Coubertin got this motto from a sermon by the Bishop of Pennsylvania during the 1908 London Games.

The five Olympic rings represent the five continents involved in the Olympics and were designed in 1912, adopted in 1914 and debuted at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics.

The symbol of the Olympic Games is composed of five interlocking rings, coloured blue, yellow, black, green, and red on a white field. This was originally designed in 1912 by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games. Upon its initial introduction, de Coubertin stated the following in the August, 1912 edition of Olympique:

"The emblem chosen to illustrate and represent the world Congress of 1914...: five intertwined rings in different colours - blue, yellow, black, green, and red - are placed on the white field of the paper. These five rings represent the five parts of the world which now are won over to Olympism and willing to accept healthy competition."

According to De Coubertin the ring colours with the white background stand for those colors that appeared on all the national flags of the world at that time.