2010 Winter Olympic Medals Unveiled
[Guest post by DRJ]
The designs for the 2010 Winter Olympic medals in Vancouver, Canada were unveiled today and they are different than any prior medals. The medals feature Canadian aboriginal art and each one will have a different design:
“Every gold, silver and bronze medal to be awarded at the Games, which start on Feb. 12, will feature sections of two larger works of contemporary aboriginal art. Their surfaces will be undulating rather than flat, another first for the Games, according to the Vancouver Organizing Committee.
“No two medals are alike. Because the story of each athlete is completely unique, so we felt it was right that each athlete take home a different medal,” said Omer Arbel, a Vancouver artist who co-designed the medals.
“But all the medals are connected, and together they make a larger whole,” Arbel said.
The two larger artworks depict the orca whale and the raven, animals that play an important symbolic role in the cultures of native Indians on Canada’s Pacific Coast, where the Games will be held.”
I’m not the artsy type so the aboriginal aspect doesn’t do much for me, but I like the idea of each medal adding to a collective whole. It’s Olympic-y in a small, small world kind of way.
— DRJ
Given their past treatment of their native peoples, this is not a surprising development – the environmental movement in Canada got started almost 15 years after it originally ramped up in the US, and as a result many virgin lands that were the property of the indigenous tribes were clear – cut and summarily ruined.
Dmac (5ddc52) — 10/16/2009 @ 6:47 pmWord is, Obama will be given the gold for skiing, in recognition of his growing prowess in the sport.
Patricia (c95a48) — 10/16/2009 @ 6:56 pmPatricia, no. He already has BEEN given the gold in skiing, for that very reason! ;]
Mitch (69e416) — 10/16/2009 @ 7:00 pmThat sounds like an incredibly bad bad bad horribly bad misguided ridiculous statement thingie. I will have to think on it. I know this much, if someone trains for decades to win a gold medal, it ought to look like a gold medal. But, I could be rushing to judgment.
JD (b91e1c) — 10/16/2009 @ 7:13 pmNot for skiing.
Skating on thin ice is more Hopey-Changey’s style.
Icy Texan (6fdd44) — 10/17/2009 @ 12:40 amSo who pays for having a gazillion different medal molds and designs, vs. just 3?
Artsy fartsy types unfamiliar with productive work and paying taxes, that’s who.
SMARTY (eed5d4) — 10/17/2009 @ 10:41 amI guess I meant that’s who doesn’t pay for the medals.
SMARTY (eed5d4) — 10/17/2009 @ 10:42 amjd, if someone gets an Olympic gold medal it will look perfect. Except for women’s ski-jumping.
Kevin Murphy (3c3db0) — 10/18/2009 @ 11:53 am