By Lisa Ovens
Before there were medals, there were ribbons. Remember being a kid, earning a ribbon in competition? I do. I also remember imagining what it would be like to win Gold in an Olympic event. Didn’t matter which event either. In my head I was winning them all. But I only really imagined the last part of competing: the finish.
On Thursday October 15th, we will find out what awaits the top three athletes of each winter Olympic sport. The design of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympics medals will be revealed in a ceremony at the recently complete Athlete’s Village in Vancouver.
The Royal Canadian Mint is making the medals, and Teck Cominco are the metal suppliers.
Side Note: Going back to my youth again...as a child of British Columbia, my school field trips involved tours of our natural resources and the places that worked with them. If it involved water, salmon, trees and mining, I was there.
So, yes I donned a hard hat and gingerly walked around scalding hot cauldrons of molten metals at the Cominco smelting plant outside of Trail, BC. On a side note to this side note, the Trail/ Rossland area of British Columbia is a hockey hot bed. Check out the hockey history including some great old photos here. The home team, the Trail Smoke Eaters are two time Champions in the World Ice Hockey Championships (1939,1961)
For readers who like to keep score, here are the combined medal (gold, silver, bronze) wins tallied after the last Winter Olympics...
2006 Torino Winter Olympics Medal Count
Germany 29 ,USA 25, Canada 24
Austria 23, Russia 22, Norway 19
Sweden 14, Switzerland 14, South Korea 11
Italy 11, China 11, France 9
Netherlands 9, Finland 9, Czech Republic 4
Estonia 3, Croatia 3, Australia 2
Poland 2, Ukraine 2, Japan 1
Belarus 1, Bulgaria 1, Great Britain 1
Slovakia 1, Latvia 1
Coming up...
October is a busy month for all things Winter Olympics. Here are a few other happenings...
October 14: Release of Phase 2 of the integrated transportation plan
October 22: Official Olympic Flame lighting ceremony in Olympia, Greece
October 30: Vancouver 2010 Olympic Torch Relay starts in Victoria, BC
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