Heavy Metal For Vancouver’s 2010 Olympic Medals

On Thursday, the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Organizing Committee unveiled the Gold, Silver and Bronze medals that will be distributed during the games in Vancouver and Whistler from Feb. 12-28, 2010. The medals are not only unique in design and content, but are the heaviest in Olympic history weighing in between 17 ounces (500 grams) to 20 ounces (576 grams).

These medals break from normal Olympic tradition in their appearance and they contain a few other surprises as well. They are partly made of materials from recycled TVs, computers and keyboards that might have otherwise ended up in a landfill. Vancouver metals giant Teck Resources is producing and supplying the materials for the medals which were made by the Royal Canadian Mint.

To acquire the metal for the medals, Teck Resources used a smelting process to recover materials from recycled electronics scrap. The process involved shredding, separating, and heating electronic components, then combining the byproducts with metals from other sources. So, who knows, a circuit board from one of our old laptops could be hanging around the neck of an Olympic Champion come this February.

As you can see in the above pictures, instead of the traditional round and flat design, the 2010 Winter Games medals will have a wavy shape to them. The medals art designer, Corrine Hunt, a Canadian designer of Komoyue and Tlingit heritage said the undulating medals are “inspired by the ocean waves, drifting snow, and mountainous landscapes found in the Games region and throughout Canada.”

The Vancouver Olympic committee, and the artists involved, know full well that producing these medals from electronic scrap is not going to put any kind of a dent in the problem of what to do with scrapped computers and other electronics. They do hope, however, that through the publicity gained by this, it just might generate more imaginative ideas on how to dispose of recycled electronics.

As for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics themselves, everything seems set to go. The Olympic venues are all finished and waiting the arrival of the athletes. The only question now is will there be snow at Whistler? As the top-rated ski resort in North America, it would seem unlikely that lack of snow would be a problem. But, with the weird weather patterns lately, who knows? In any event, Olympic organizers say that if nature doesn’t supply snow then they will with the biggest artificial snow makers ever seen anywhere – so, not to worry, Whistler will be just fine.

World Downhill champion, John Kucera of Calgary, is one of Canada’s hopes for Gold

While the skiing and other alpine events are taking place in Whistler, many other sports will be going ahead in Vancouver. Among them figure skating, speed skating and, of course – men’s and women’s hockey. For Canadians, the Olympics will be an overwhelming success even if Canada only wins one Gold medal – as long as it is the Men’s Hockey Gold. Nothing else really matters – although the Women’s Hockey Gold is a close second.

Canada will be hoping for a repeat of Salt Lake City’s Olympic Hockey Gold Medal

While all this is taking place at home, Paulette and I will be sitting in front of a TV in 90F temperatures, among the Palm Trees in Desert Hot Springs, sipping a cool drink and watching everyone huddled around in jackets, gloves and boots cheering on their favorite athletes. Would I rather be in Whistler? Not a chance!!