Olympics 2024 | Star power elevates pin trading, the unofficial sport of Paris Games

Paris: Since the Paris Olympics kicked off, a pair of tiny orange Dutch clogs, the unofficial pin of the Netherlands team, has become a coveted currency among the athletes. Nearly 1 inch long and dangling from a butterfly clutch, the pin exchanged hands between Yara ten Holte, a Dutch handball player, and Ilona Maher, a US women’s rugby star, who gleefully flaunted her prize on TikTok.

“One thing about the Olympic Village is, trading pins is serious business,” Maher said last week in a post that was viewed more than 2.7 million times. “We don’t mess around trading pins, OK?”

Trading in pins— those tiny, shiny emblems made by sports delegations, federations, countries and the media outlets covering them— is a long-standing tradition at the Olympics. But the activity was subdued during the pandemic, as restrictions at the Summer Games in Tokyo and the Winter Games in Beijing prevented athletes, fans and pin collectors from getting anywhere near one another.

In Paris, however, pin mania has come roaring back, this time elevated by celebrity star power and athletes chronicling their most-prized conquests on social media. With more than 14,000 international athletes gathered in the Olympic Village outside Paris, pin swapping has become the Games’ hottest unofficial sport.

“I’m a first-class pin collector,” Serena Williams declared in a video on the Paris Olympics Instagram account. A pins aficionado, she said her most-prized possession was a rare find from the North Korean sports delegation, which she acquired during the 2016 Rio Games. “I would never, ever trade that,” she said.

Stephen Curry, a two-time MVP for the NBA, was filmed handing out pins on the American team boat during the opening ceremony. Gymnast Simone Biles came to Paris with a bagful of her own designs in the shape of a curvy gold heart adorned with her signature. They instantly became one of the most-coveted items in town.

And then there is Snoop Dogg, a breakout star of the Paris Games as a commentator for NBCUniversal. His custom-made pin— a bling-worthy silver rectangle— features a portrait of him in a royal blue tracksuit blowing Olympic-colored smoke rings into the air, with the Eiffel Tower shimmering in the background.

In a video that ricocheted across social media, he offered one to Coco Gauff, a US tennis champion, whose Olympic run ended last week. “This is for you, great game,” Snoop Dogg said, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with her face. “This is the best pin I’ve ever gotten,” Gauff replied in a video.

Olympic pins were originally used to identify athletes, judges and officials, starting in 1896 with the first modern Games in Athens, where cardboard discs bearing names and countries were pinned to clothing. Over time, pins became sleeker and enameled, with Olympic committees and sponsors issuing them as merchandise to cash in or cover costs. (The New York Times makes its own pins that it gives to reporters covering events.)

But beyond the commercial aspect, Olympic pins are a currency of friendship and goodwill, with athletes seeking to trade badges from their countries or swap rare ones to enhance their collections.

Mylan Murphy, a content creator and the digital and social lead for Team USA in the Olympic Village, said he had come to Paris with three team pins and had been advised by athletes to get ready to trade.

“I had no idea what that meant at first,” he said. “But it instantly turned into this bonding thing, bringing everyone together, even people who don’t speak the same language.”

Jasmine Schofield, a swimmer representing Dominica, asked other athletes to rate her collection. Her country has only four athletes, which makes their pins rare. “But we love to give out our pins, so please come get them,” she said on TikTok.

Japanese tennis champion Naomi Osaka said on the social platform X that she was pining for a Haitian pin. “I’m going to beg them for it, or I’m going to park myself outside the Haitian building,” she said.

“Social media has really amplified this,” Murphy said. “Before, it was this unspoken pin-trading thing. Now, one pin can go viral because someone likes it, and it becomes the hottest thing in the village.”

What’s the holy grail? Desire for Snoop Dogg’s pin is off the charts. And there was a lot of buzz around a table tennis pin after Curry persuaded the U.S. women’s table tennis squad to challenge his teammate Anthony Edwards to a match.

From an international standpoint, Murphy added, the Dutch clogs pin that Maher scored is in “high demand.”

But the hottest thing going is the Biles pin, and it has become nothing short of an obsession to get one. Alena Saili, a gold medalist for the New Zealand women’s rugby team, meticulously chronicled her team’s “pinquest” on TikTok.

Saili’s teammate Tysha Ikenasio finally scored one after approaching Biles. “What happened was, I was leaving the food hall, and I just got ... ,” Ikenasio said, and then held up the heart-shaped pin and screamed.