Rio 2016 was a great year for pin trading. I particularly loved how excited and engaged the volunteers and Brazilian staff at the USA House were with pin trading. Everywhere you looked, lanyards were glittering with Rio bling. It has finally come to an end, so I thought I would share a few of my favorite pins coming out of the Games.
As I mentioned, country pins are among the most valuable and difficult to get at the Olympics, namely because they are held by athletes, coaches and NOC representatives. In my opinion, the athletes fare the best at the pin game, because they have the advantage of living amongst all of the different competing countries inside the Olympic village. I noticed a lot of great country pins on the lanyards of the U.S. athletes coming in and out of the USA House. I did manage to get a few pretty awesome NOC pins, despite not being an athlete. (Roll over the photos to learn a bit more about each pin.)
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The next year is bound to be very exciting given the final stretch of the ongoing 2024 Olympic Bid. Currently, my hometown of Los Angeles is competing against Budapest, Paris and Rome for these Summer Games. One of the highlights of the last three weeks was spending time with the team from LA 2024 at the USA House, where they had an incredibly impressive exhibit on display which illustrated the vision for these Games. Highlights of these bid plans include the need to build only a single venue, as well as close integration with existing city planning and goals, such as public transportation expansions. Looking forward to seeing this vision come to life in 2024!
In addition to the NOC pins, different sport teams have their own pins as well, at least in the United States. Over the course of the last three weeks, we’ve had nearly every team come into the USA House, and many were very generous to share their pins with us behind the front desk, whether it be an athlete or another member of the national team or federation. Here are a few of my favorites.
There are a lot of sponsor pins, and this year there were some great ones. Typically, each sponsor will have a set of pins that their guests and partners get to trade (I previously shared some of the John Hancock ones we used to get at previous games on my instagram @rtobias). There were a tremendous number of sponsor groups that came to the USA House while I was working there, and so many people were so generous to us at the front desk by giving us a pin or two after we helped them register. Here are a few of my favorites.
This EY pin below is pretty standard, but it was the result of one of my favorite days of the Games, spent with my CMO who came to visit the Games for a few days with the EY group. Together, we went to tennis, handball and swimming, and had a wonderful lunch with a great group of EY guests.
© 2026 Rachel Tobias