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Olympin Tales III

Stories from a Pinhead

By Rachel Tobias

August 20^th, 2016

N.o.c. pins

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.)

Tipped off by my USOC lead, Colvin, this was the obvious favorite. I managed to trade for two, so we each went home with one.

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I traded this with some athletes from Mali's judo and taekwondo team, along with their team psychologist (which is an amazing job!)

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The smaller version of the Thailand team pin

Cambodia's team pin, which I traded with their wrestling coaches in line at Sugarloaf

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The Zambia team pin, traded with a Zambia team member who visited the USA House

We ran into the Irish hockey team at a local restaurant, and I managed to score this beauty

bid committee pins

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!

individual team pins

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.

USA Rio 2016 cycling pin, given to me by track cycling silver medalist Kelly Catlin

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The very gregarious Jesse Smith of USA men's water polo gave me this pin, which I was very excited about

Silver medalist Sam Dorman's parents were kind enough to give us a USA diving pin

sponsor pins

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.

NBC had a lot of great pins this year, but this 'sand globe' beach volleyball pin is by far my favorite

I almost never buy pins, but I couldn't resist this one at the Coca-Cola pin trading center in Olympic Park

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P&G had my favorite pins this year, but Hershey's came in a close second

I was excited to get this pin, in the inaugural year of the new Olympic Channel

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P&G had a new pin every day, and I was lucky enough to get this Sugarloaf one when at the P&G house

This was the pin we gave out at the USA House registration desk; this paralympic wheelchair by BMW was at display at the House

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.