Olympic pin-collecting tradition becomes a trend and here's the pin most sought after by athletes

Sporting events such as the Olympics are known to create memorable moments and give rise to trends that turn into traditions. For instance, swapping jerseys remains a tradition in soccer while athletes in the Olympics are known to bite their medals as part of a custom. As the internet buzzes with interesting updates from the Paris 2024 Olympics, one thing that grabbed huge attention is the "Olympic pin trading" trend. Not only athletes but also staff and sports fans are ardently collecting and trading various countries' pins and showing them off on social media. Apart from the official country pins, specialized pins from sponsors, hosting cities, and even athletes themselves are being traded. Turns out, this tradition is not that new and goes all the way back to the 1896 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, as per CBS Sunday Morning producer Roman Feeser.

This year TikTok is flooded with Olympic athletes flaunting their pin collections and the American rugby player Ilona Maher (@ilonamaher) was one of the first to do so. She posted a video where she was "trading pins in the Olympic Village" with a couple of Dutch athletes and was excited to add a clogs-shaped pin to her collection. "Trading pins is serious business. We're not messing around trading pins like that," she said. The video garnered more than 2.6 million views in a week and people were amused by this trend. "The Olympic Village is literally summer camp," quipped @hellomynameisdorris. "Those clogs are so cute," added @karensender.

Yet another Olympic athlete who passionately chronicled their "pin quest" journey was New Zealand rugby player Alena Saili (@lifeoflenax). Saili and her fellow teammates devotedly collected several pins in this year's Paris games. Recently, the rugby player posted a clipping of teammate Tysha Ikenasio's "pin trading" accomplishments. Turns out, Ikenasio has collected one pin from a country corresponding to every alphabet. Showing off a table full of Olympic pins, the athletes were quite proud of what they had achieved and this video garnered over 1.6 million views in just 3 days.

Even the most experienced and celebrated Olympic champions ardently followed this tradition including tennis legend Serena Willimas. In a video shared by the official TikTok handle of the Olympics (@olympics), Williams called herself a "first-class pin collector." She had been collecting various countries' pins since the Sydney Olympics in 2000. She went on to add, "There's a few Thailand ones that I'll never trade. I was finally able to nab the North Korea pin in Rio. So I would never ever trade that," the tennis player said. The caption accurately described her as, "Queen of tennis. Queen of pins."

If pin collecting is almost a sport now, this year's "gold medal" winner based on popularity among the pin collectors and traders, could be the quirky Snoop Dogg pin, according to NBC. One of the lucky recipients of this special pin was the American tennis player Coco Gauff. "Hey Coco, I got something for you, beautiful," the rapper said in a video shared by USTA on Instagram.

You can follow Ilona Maher (@ilonamaher) on TikTok for more sports content.

You can follow Alena Saili (@lifeoflenax) on TikTok for more sports and lifestyle content.

You can follow the Olympics (@olympics) on TikTok for more Olympic Games updates.

You can follow USTA (@usta) on Instagram for more tennis content.