Medals Unveiled

As promised, the Medals for the 2010 Winter Games were unveiled today. The slideshow below gives you an overview of the press-photos released:



I gotta say that I really really like them, especially the embedded artwork. It looks almost lacquered wood, which I think gives it a really down-to-earth quality. An interesting note is that the artwork that appears on each medal is supposedly unique for each of them, with each medal having a 'zoomed in' section of a larger piece of artwork that was drawn up.

My only complaint is that I think I would have liked a maple leaf worked into the design some how, offsetting the strong Native element to some extent....but overall...I'll take 'em...

Medals by the Numbers
• 2.05 – kilograms of gold used in production of medals
• 30 – number of steps in fabrication process
• 95 millimetres – width of Paralympic medal
• 100 millimetres – diameter of Olympic medals
• 399 – medals for the Vancouver 2010 Paralympic Winter Games
• 500 grams to 576 g – weight of medals, among the heaviest in Olympic and Paralympic history.
• 615 – medals for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games
• 903 – kilograms of copper used in production of bronze medals
• 1,950 – kilograms of silver used in production of medals
• 1976 – the last year the Royal Canadian Mint created medals for the Olympic Games