When did Olympic medal winners start draping themselves in their nation’s flag?

As soon as an Olympic athlete wins a medal, it’s seemingly obligatory to head to the stands in search of their nation’s flag to wrap around themselves in celebration.

Swimming, track and field, fencing, boxing, gymnastics. There isn’t a sport where not just the gold medalist but the silver and bronze winners, too, drape a flag over their shoulders and spread it like butterfly wings. After American gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik earned a bronze medal in pommel horse, he donned the red, white and blue like a Superman cape.

Asked in an NBC sports interview how it happened, Nedoroscik said, “No idea. I just got announced that I was the bronze medalist and my coach came up to me and said, ‘You don’t get a flag, you get a cape.’”

So, how did this flag-draping practice get started? That’s hard to say.

Waving your banner all over the place

Earlier, it was more flag waving than flag wearing, at least among American athletes.

Caitlyn Jenner, formerly known as Bruce, became an Olympic icon after clinching the gold medal in the decathlon with a second-place finish in the 1,500-meter run when a fan ran onto the field and provided a small American flag on a stick at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.

“What am I going to do with this?” Jenner later said was the initial thought, per ESPN . “I can’t put it down, it would look unpatriotic. Creating a spectacle was the last thing I would have done. It just wasn’t my style.”

Jenner slowly lifted the flag in the air and waved it emphatically as the crowd roared, creating one of the most indelible images in the history of the Games.

“That moment changed the Games,” Jenner would later say. “I had the flag in my hand and it really started something.”

But U.S. boxer George Foreman’s flag waving preceding Jenner’s by eight years.

In the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, Foreman brought a small American flag to his gold medal-winning bout against Jonas Cepulis of the Soviet Union.

“When I walked into the Olympic Village, I saw a couple of athletes who looked like me. I went to speak to them, but they couldn’t speak English. For the first time, I realized that the only thing that could identify us was our nation’s colors. I thought that, after I win my last fight, when I bow to the judges, I am going to carry our flag. (Everyone) is going to know where I am from. I sincerely didn’t think they would. I waved the flag so they knew I was American. Everyone started applauding, so I waved it higher. That is the only reason I had that flag. If I had to do it all over again, I would have had two flags in my pocket,” he said, according to a 2018 published on andscape.com .

American sprinter Carl Lewis famously took a victory lap carrying a large American flag on a pole after running to gold in the 100 meters at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. U.S. sprinter Florence Griffith Joyner did the same thing four years later at the Seoul Olympics after taking the gold medal in the 100 meters. But neither of them wore the flags around their shoulders.

How did flag-wearing start?

The practice of athletes draping themselves in their national flags after winning a medal is well-documented in recent Olympic history, but identifying how and where it began is challenging. Early celebrations were not chronicled. Even a noted Olympic historian the Deseret News contacted didn’t have any insight into the practice.

It appears to be a relatively modern development in the history of the Olympics. And it might have started with fans spontaneously giving an athlete a flag.

Some point to Jim Craig, the hockey goalie who skated around the rink draped in an American flag that a fan handed him after the U.S. beat Finland in the gold medal game at the 1980 Winter Games in Lake Placid, as the first. The iconic scene is one of the greatest moments in American sports history. The Americans made it to the final with an improbable win over the Soviet Union two days before in what became the “Miracle on Ice.”

“I, as any excited American caught up in the emotion of the moment, jumped over the glass with the flag and brought it to him and draped it around him,” said Peter Cappucilli, the fan who put the flag on Craig’s shoulders, per ESPN .

One of the enduring images of the 1980 Games was of Craig, wrapped in the flag, searching the stands for his widowed father in order to share in the victory.

In 2008, American Henry Cejudo captured gold in freestyle wrestling in Beijing. One of his friends, a captain in the U.S. Army, wrapped up an American flag in a rubber band and tossed it about 300 feet from his seat in the stadium to Cejudo’s corner of the mat, Mike Finn wrote in the wrestling magazine WIN . Cejudo’s coach picked up the flag, unwrapped it and handed it to the wrestler, who ran around the mat lifting the flag over his head or resting it on his shoulders.

At those same Summer Games, Russian wrestler Bouvaissa Saitiev celebrated his gold medal by carrying the Russian flag over his head and around his shoulders before leaving it at the center of the mat, signifying his retirement from the sport.

Pack a flag

Tom Kelly, the longtime spokesperson for the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team who retired in 2018, said before he left for pretty much every one of the Olympics he worked, he would pack American flags into his bags. He now mentors young press officers to do the same. A few weeks before the Paris Games, he met with USA Climbing press officer Patrick Bodnar to give him some tips.

“Foremost among those was to pack some American flags. There was also a while I used to catalog which athletes used which flags in the finish area thinking of the historical value. So every time I see a medalist on TV, I think back to my days,” said Kelly, who now works as the communication lead for the Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games. Salt Lake City will host the 2034 Winter Games.

Over the years, the practice has evolved into a gesture of unity and achievement, celebrated by both athletes and countries. Gold, silver and bronze medal winners from three different countries in the same event have often posed together spreading their nation’s flags across their backs in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

“Without question, it’s way more prolific today than it was when I started in the game 30 to 40 years ago. It’s pretty cool to see,” Kelly said. “There are really very few sporting events today where national pride takes precedence. Flags are really symbolic of that and help carry the pride of the athlete’s accomplishment to the millions of countrymen and women watching on TV.”

Flag etiquette

Nowadays, flag-wearing seems to be part of an almost choreographed victory party rather than a spontaneous celebration. Winning athletes immediately after crossing the finishing line or dismounting the balance beam head for the sidelines where a flag is waiting.

In fact, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee actually coaches American athletes on how to properly and respectfully celebrate with the flag.

“We just want them to be ready,” a USOPC spokesperson said, USA Today reported.

Etiquette recommendations include:

• Make sure the flag is displayed with the stars behind you on the right.
• Raise the flag above your head.
• Return the flag to a coach before leaving the field of play.

Displaying the flag with the stars down, wearing the flag or letting the flag touch the ground are no-nos.

“After running a race, you can’t wrap your body around (the flag) even though you’re showing love for it,” retired track and field star Jackie Joyner-Kersee told ESPN in 2012 . “Someone will be watching who doesn’t even care about sports, but all they know about is how you treat that flag.”

Snowboarder Shaun White took heat for letting the American flag touch the snow after winning the halfpipe contest at the 2018 Winter Games. He later said in a news conference that the flag slipped while he was trying to put his gloves on and get hold of his snowboard.

“So honestly, if there was anything, I definitely didn’t mean any disrespect. The flag that’s flying on my house right now is way up there. So sorry for that.,” White said. “But I’m definitely proud — very proud — to be a part of Team USA and being an American and to be representing for everyone back home.”