Leave your Mark: four Olympic Games, 4,500+ Olympian signatures and one global map for the World Olympians Association

The idea is simple: every Olympian, past and present, leaves a personal mark during the Games. Delivering it is not. It has to:

• Feel personal. A real signature, not a form submission.
• Be genuine. Only Olympians can take part, so every mark has to be checked against the WOA’s records.
• Work for everyone. Olympians span every age, country and level of tech confidence, and sign from phones, tablets and laptops all over the world.
• Run on Olympic time. Each edition goes live for the Opening Ceremony and closes with the Games, with no room to slip and the world watching in between.

• A signing experience that captures each Olympian’s own handwritten signature
• Olympian verification against the WOA’s database, with approval before any mark goes public
• A live world map and search, so Olympians can find each other by country, Games and sport
• English, French and Spanish throughout
• Fast and reliable during traffic spikes around ceremonies and medal moments
• Every edition preserved, so each Games keeps its own map

A signature, not a form

The heart of Leave your Mark is a signature pad. Olympians sign with a finger, stylus or mouse, and the mark is stored as a crisp vector, so it looks as good on a phone as it does printed on a poster. Around it sits a short, step-by-step journey with a progress bar: find yourself, confirm your details, add your hometown and sign. We kept every step plain and friendly, because the person signing might be a teenage debutant or a champion from the 1950s.

Verified, every single mark

Every mark on the map belongs to a real Olympian. As someone signs up, the site checks their details against the WOA’s Olympian database through its CRM. The WOA team then approves each signature in the CRM before it appears. Approval triggers an automatic rebuild, so a new mark is live on the map within about a minute, while every page stays static and fast.

A map of the Olympic family

Each approved mark becomes a pin on an interactive world map, placed at the Olympian’s hometown and clustered as they gather. Olympians can explore the map or switch to a grid of signatures, and filter by country, Games and sport to find teammates, rivals and neighbours. The search covers more than 30 Games, from Melbourne 1956 onwards, so the map connects generations of Olympians, not just this year’s team.

Three languages, one experience

English, French and Spanish run through the whole site, from the invitation to the signing flow, each with its own address. Olympians sign in the language they are most comfortable with, and the WOA shares a link that works for its whole community.

Built for every Games

Leave your Mark is a platform rather than a one-off microsite. Each Games gets its own edition and theme. When the Games close, that edition is preserved as a permanent snapshot at its own address, with its map and every signature intact. The next edition starts fresh on the same proven foundations, which made the Milano Cortina 2026 edition quick to launch: about two weeks from go-ahead to going live for the Opening Ceremony.

• Tokyo 2020. The first edition, live during the summer of 2021.
• Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022. The first winter edition.
• Olympic Games Paris 2024. Now working directly with the WOA, we designed the souvenir poster as well as building the site.
• Olympic Games Milano Cortina 2026. The fourth edition, with a winter poster signed by WOA President Pernilla Wiberg OLY.

A poster made of signatures

Every Olympian who leaves a mark receives an exclusive souvenir poster made from all the marks collected, a keepsake of their part in the Games. For Paris 2024 we designed an Eiffel Tower drawn entirely from Olympians’ signatures. For Milano Cortina 2026, the signatures became snow-capped mountains.

Across four Games, more than 4,500 Olympians have left their mark: 1,857 for Tokyo 2020, 1,039 for Beijing 2022, 910 for Paris 2024 and 704 for Milano Cortina 2026. Together they form a hand-signed thank-you from the Olympic family, stretching right around the globe.

Each edition went live on time for its Opening Ceremony and stayed reliable throughout the Games. When a third-party location service failed on the eve of the Beijing 2022 Opening Ceremony, we replaced it overnight, so Olympians could keep signing without interruption. All four editions remain online as a lasting record, and the Olympic family keeps growing with every Games.

With four editions behind it, Leave your Mark is ready for the Olympic Games LA28 and beyond. Each new Games adds another chapter to the map.