What, exactly, are Phryges? Explaining the Paris 2024 mascots – National

[Pelican Press 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

What, exactly, are Phryges? Explaining the Paris 2024 mascots – National

The 2024 Paris Olympics are finally upon us, and there’s one pretty prominent symbol for these games that has a lot of people scratching their heads.

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==

The two red blobs that make up this year’s iteration of the Summer Olympics’ mascots look more like they belong in a geometry class than on a sporting field, but they’re actually a pretty important part of French history.

No, the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, as they are called, are not a pair of triangles, nor are they tongues or any other part of the body — instead, they are meant to represent a pair of Phrygian caps, a type of hat that is symbolic of the French liberation.

On vous présente la Phryge Olympique et la Phryge Paralympique !
Les mascottes de

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">

Here are the Olympic Phryge and the Paralympic Phryge!
The

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

mascots

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

— Paris 2024 (@Paris2024)

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Story continues below advertisement

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

(pronounced FREE-juh) are based on caps worn by 18th-century French revolutionaries who wore the head coverings as a symbol of freedom, but according to National Geographic, the origin of the cap

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, appearing in the ******* War.

“We chose the Phrygian cap because it’s a

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

,” said Tony Estanguet, president of the Paris 2024 organizing committee, when the mascots were revealed.

“For French people, it’s a very well-known object that is a symbol of freedom, an object that will represent mascots all across the world. The fact that the Paralympics mascot has a visible disability also sends a strong message: to promote inclusion.”

******** diver Yang Hao (R) wears a hat featuring the Phryges, the official mascot of Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, at a souvenir store inside the Olympic Village last Sunday in Paris, France.

Zhao Wenyu / China News Service / VCG via Getty Images

The caps, he added, are on “a mission of revolution through sport.”

Story continues below advertisement

Throughout French history, the caps have been worn. They were donned when French revolutionaries stormed the Bastille prison in 1789, marking the beginning of the French Revolution during the construction of the Eiffel Tower and Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral, and even at early iterations of the Olympic games.

The Olympic Phryge and the Paralympic Phryge are taking the lead of a tribe which always has its trainers on

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Games!

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

— Paris 2024 (@Paris2024)

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up