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The 13th Olympic Winter Games: Lake Placid 1980

image by Zachary Harden, 12 March 2024

Reported flag
Reported variant

See also:

Other sites:

International Olympic Committee Website

Reported flag

The ornamental cloth appearing several times on the following page is not what we normally refer to as a flag (clickable photos):
http://jerseysandhockeylove.com/blog/2010/05/07/usa-hockey-hall-of-fame-part-one/
but it shows the logo quite nicely. A neat explanation is found here:
http://joshjackblog.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/winter-olympics-a-history/
"The chevrons on the right represent the mountains around the Olympic region. These join the vertical lines of the modified Ionic column on the left, which recalls the predecessors of the modern Olympic Games. The serration on the top of the column turns into the Olympic rings, making them look as if they are emerging from the top. This serration symbolizes a double Olympic cauldron, to commemorate the Games already held in Lake Placid in 1932."
In fact an initial "L" can be made out as well and besides this monocoloured version there was a multicoloured one as well, first on this page:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic-art/428005/76209/An-official-poster-from-the-1980-Winter-Olympics-held-in
Attached reduced photo is the item once offered by "edwinart" on eBay under no. 200262376633 (end 17 Oct 2008) was described as follows (edited, jm): "Roughly 3x5 feet / Made by Nyl-Glo /100% Nylon bunting /Annin & Co. Written on the hoist border is L.P.O.C.C. (...) This is not from the actual hockey game but Lake Placid is where the US Hockey Team beat the Soviet Union for the 1st place victory in the Winter Olympics."
Of course "this and other flags were part of the Tumbling Waters Museum which sold out the collection in the early 80s to the Heritage Society because of financial difficulty in keeping the museum running, I was told. The best were kept and these are the culls."
Jan Mertens, 2 February 2011

Reported variant

image by Zachary Harden, 12 March 2024

[Here] we show ornamental cloth for the 1980 Winter Olympics, Lake Placid. We also note, that this is indeed merely an ornamental cloth, not necessarily a flag. It's really just a logo on white. Now, eBay let me know of an "US Olympic Flag Lake Placid 1980 vintage", which has a bit more character to it. Do we think this then is an authentic W13 flag?
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 11 January 2024

I cannot say for sure at this exact point which flag is official or not, but what you showed was indeed used at the Games.
Zachary Harden, 12 March 2024