[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Those five rings stand for the continents. Only three have held the Olympics.

You're wrong about the rings, and forgotten the Melbourne games.

[kabar]

I am in good company. Sometimes you can be wrong and still right.

Brazil's best-selling novelist Paulo Coelho put his substantial literary weight behind Rio de Janeiro's 2016 Olympic bid here Thursday.

"The idea of the Olympics is not only to change the body but also the mind.

"In Rio, my city, it will mean a lot to have the Olympics not only in terms of sports but also transformation."

He added: "Each of the five Olympic rings symbolises a continent - we need one of those rings to be fulfilled - we need to host the Games in South America for the first time."

[kabar]

The symbol of the Olympic Games is composed of five interlocking rings, colored blue, yellow, black, green, and red on a white field. This was originally designed in 1912 by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games. Upon its initial introduction, de Coubertin stated the following in the August, 1912 edition of Revue Olympique:

The emblem chosen to illustrate and represent the world Congress of 1914...: five intertwined rings in different colors - blue, yellow, black, green, red - are placed on the white field of the paper. These five rings represent the five parts of the world which now are won over to Olympism and willing to accept healthy competition.

These five parts are generally taken to mean the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania.