When the Olympic flag featuring five interlocked rings representing Africa, Asia, Australia, the Americas, and Europe rose for the first time at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium, it symbolized peace and hope after the devastation of World War I.
Athletes and spectators celebrated the beginning of a new chapter in sportsmanship and global unity.
But by the end of the Games, the first Olympic flag had mysteriously vanished.
It disappeared without a trace—until Hal Prieste, a young American diver, revealed the secret decades later.
Born Haig Keshishian on November 23, 1896, in Fresno, California, Prieste was the son of Armenian immigrants who had fled the Ottoman Empire.
During World War I, he joined the Navy, where he discovered his natural talent for swimming and diving.
After leaving the Navy, he tried out for the Olympics, winning first place in diving at the Alameda, California, trials.
His victory earned him a spot on the U.S. Olympic team and a chance to train at the New York Athletic Club before heading to Antwerp.
At the 1920 Games, Prieste competed in platform diving, earning a bronze medal behind his teammate Clarence Pinkston and Sweden’s Erik Adlerz.
“It was a very cold, damp day,” he recalled in 1999. He described the routine of wearing a bathrobe while awaiting his turn to dive and how he overcame a last-place start during the compulsory dives to perform increasingly difficult dives from a 32-foot platform.
As the Games drew to a close, Prieste’s friend and fellow Olympian Duke Kahanamoku, credited with popularizing surfing, dared him to take the Olympic flag.
Rising to the challenge, Prieste climbed a 15-foot flagpole and snatched the Irish linen flag, bringing it home to Los Angeles alongside his bronze medal.
Prieste pursued a varied and vibrant career in show business after the Olympics.
Performing under the name Hal Haig Prieste, he became one of the original Keystone Kops, appeared in 25 films alongside Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, performed as a vaudeville comedian, circus acrobat, and even learned ice skating after age 40 to perform in the Ice Follies.
For 77 years, Prieste quietly kept the Olympic flag folded in a suitcase.
He regarded it as a personal memento rather than a historic treasure.
It wasn’t until 1997, at a United States Olympic Committee banquet, that he realized its significance during a conversation with a reporter.
“I can help you with that,” he said. “It’s in my suitcase.”
By then, Prieste was 103 years old. Recognizing the flag’s importance, he returned it to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) at a ceremony in Sydney, Australia, ahead of the 2000 Olympic Games.
The flag, slightly tattered along the edge where it had been ripped from the pole, remained otherwise in good condition.
IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch accepted the flag and presented Prieste with a commemorative medal.
Prieste’s lifelong dedication to fitness and adventure was celebrated alongside his extraordinary story.
At age 100, he had participated in the Olympic torch relay in Atlanta and continued performing push-ups and ice skating well into his centenarian years.
He passed away on April 19, 2001, in Camden, New Jersey, at 104, holding the distinction of being the world’s oldest former Olympian and the first Olympian whose life spanned three centuries.
Today, the Antwerp Olympic flag is proudly displayed at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland, with a plaque honoring Prieste’s remarkable contribution to Olympic history.
From daring athlete to Hollywood performer to centenarian legend, Hal Prieste’s life intertwined with sport, spectacle, and the enduring spirit of the Olympics.
