The official medals for the 2010 Winter Olympics were unveiled Thursday morning in Vancouver, featuring original West Coast aboriginal designs of an orca and a raven.
In an Olympic first, each medal will be unique, featuring part of an image cropped from two large master artworks by Corrine Hunt, a Canadian designer and artist of Komoyue and Tlingit heritage based in Vancouver, B.C.
For example, each medal will include its own signature elements of the orca and raven artwork, such as the suggestion of the orca’s eye, the curve of its dorsal fin or the contours of the raven’s wing, said officials.
A silk scarf printed with the master artwork will be presented to each Olympian or Paralympian with the medal, enabling them to see how their medal connects with those awarded to other athletes at the Games.
Guided by tradition
Hunt said she drew on the meaning of the creatures in native traditions to guide the designs.
“The orca is a beautiful creature that is strong but also lives within a community. I felt the Olympic Games are a community, too, ” said Hunt.
The design for the Olympic medals feature parts of a West Coast aboriginal design of an orca on an undulating surface of circular medal. The design for the Olympic medals feature parts of a West Coast aboriginal design of an orca on an undulating surface of circular medal. (VANOC)”The athletes may be training but they’re always somehow connected to their community, to their teammates, or to their country. The orca is a creature that has wonderful capabilities but can’t really survive without its pod,” she said.
“My design for the Paralympic medal — a raven on a totem rising — is close to my heart and in honour of my uncle who is a paraplegic. The raven is a creature that is all things and I think Paralympic athletes have that in them,” she said.
“They’re sometimes given challenges and they rise above them and the raven does the same. I think the creativity of the raven gives us hope — to accept when things don’t work out and really rejoice when they do,” said Hunt.
Undulating surfaces
Also for the first time, the medals are not flat. Instead, they have an undulating surface intended to represent the West Coast landscape of mountains and waves and drifting snow.
The Paralympic medal will feature parts of a larger West Coast aboriginal image of the raven, imprinted on squared-circle of undulating metal. The Paralympic medal will feature parts of a larger West Coast aboriginal image of the raven, imprinted on squared-circle of undulating metal. (VANOC)Canadian industrial designer and architect Omer Arbel, also of Vancouver, created the innovative undulating design of the medals, which were struck nine times each to achieve the distinctive look as part of a 30-step medal fabrication process.
The Olympic medals are circular in shape, while the Paralympic medals are a superellipse, or squared circle, drawn from traditional West Coast native designs. At more than 500 grams each, the medals are amongst the heaviest in Olympic and Paralympic history.
“I’ve always thought of the Olympic Games as a catalyst for great contemporary design. It’s exciting to have arrived at a piece of work that challenges people’s expectations of what a medal can be,” said Arbel.
Read the rest at CBC.ca/News
WatchMojo.com follows a group of BMX riders as they shred it up and tell us about life in the Presence crew.
I wonder how long these dudes practiced some of these dunks before the finally succeeded! They should try out for Slamball and see how well some of these dunks work in a real game!
Honestly, this isn’t that crazy… but the press has jumped all over the fact that Nike confiscated the tapes… watch it below:
The run is pretty badass, but my question is, How the hell did they film this?
Here are the Top Ten dunks from the Sprite Slam Dunk Showdown. These dudes are awesome:
This is hands down my favorite sporting event of the year. Check out the hilarious, terrifying and cringe-inducing highlights from this years Cheese Rolling competition in Gloucestershire, England:
Wow, this guy is a moron! If you’re going to try and break the world record for High Dive, you should probably be 100% certain that landing belly flop is not an option. Amazing that he didn’t break his back/die:
Is Padraig Harrington ready ‘Happy Gilmore’ a golf ball in a PGA tournament? Probably not, but there’s actual evidence to support the fact that it gives him extra yards… Check out this clip from Sport Science for the details:
This is crazy… Can you imagine if this was happening in the Majors? It’s wild that 4 no-hitters in a row is possible at any level. Read more from ESPN:
NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. — Standing behind home plate, behind the wall of poised radar guns, four consecutive no-hitters didn’t seem so improbable. Trying to wrap the brain around the concept — four games without even one Texas-leaguer or seeing-eye single — grows more difficult with each of Patrick Schuster’s starts. But in the moment, against a fastball that looks like a Ferrari changing lanes on the Autobahn and a slider that spends just enough time in the strike zone to entice a swing, a hit would have offered more of a surprise.
So after Schuster, a senior at Mitchell High in Trinity, Fla., blew a fastball past Pasco High designated hitter Trejon Smith to seal Monday’s 5-0, 17-strikeout win, it felt odd that his teammates would mob him and douse him with the water bucket. Against stuff like that, how could the Pirates have gotten a hit? But as the seconds passed and the enormity of the accomplishment sunk in, the celebration made perfect sense.
Schuster is the undisputed no-hit king in a state that routinely cranks out pro prospects. His no-no against Pasco broke a 24-year-old Florida record, and he needs two more to tie the national record. One longtime local observer who watched Dwight Gooden pitch at Tampa’s Hillsborough High said that while Schuster isn’t quite the phenom Gooden was, he certainly has the makings of something special. Scouts already knew about Schuster, a 6-foot-1, 170-pound lefty with a three-quarter delivery that must make right-handed batters feel as if Schuster’s 90-92 mph fastball is coming down the first base line. Those scouts lined the fences at his games on the AAU circuit this summer. So did college coaches, and Florida’s Kevin O’Sullivan convinced Schuster to sign a letter of intent in November to play for the Gators next year. Assuming, of course, Schuster doesn’t go pro this summer.
Schuster’s notoriety remained contained to the seamhead realm until he threw his third consecutive no-hitter against Clearwater’s Central Catholic on April 13. SportsCenter showed a highlight. Last Friday, Schuster went on ESPN2’s First Take, where he was interviewed by Tom Engle, an ESPN producer and former minor leaguer who tied the national record for consecutive no-hitters when he threw six for Fairfield Union in Lancaster, Ohio. Mitchell’s principal declared Monday Patrick Schuster Day, and that night, television vans swarmed the school parking lot, antennae raised to send video of the impending no-no. A reporter from the Tampa bureau of The Associated Press came to write a story that would be distributed across the nation.
“This kind of exploded for us,” Schuster’s mother, Sharon, said. “We had no clue it was going to get this crazy.”
The scouts don’t affect Schuster. In fact, he saw far more this summer because elite travel team tournaments are far more economical to scout than regular-season high school games. Still, the scouts were out in force Monday. Sharon Schuster said she has seen some of the usual faces during the streak. The Diamondbacks, Mets, Rays and Tigers have been regulars. The better question is this: Has the streak affected the scouts? “I’ve been talking to scouts,” Schuster said. “They’re saying none of this is making a difference. They’re seeing me in a specific round, and they’re not going to change it. So I’m not going to worry about it.”
Ranked the nation’s No. 79 prospect by Baseball America in November, Schuster is still projected as a second-round pick. Whether that will carry enough of a signing bonus to keep him from going to Gainesville remains to be seen. Whatever he chooses, he has the blessing of his family. “Really? I want to see him play pro ball. When that’s going to happen, I don’t know,” Sharon Schuster said. “I think a mother would be crazy not to want that for her son.”
PLAY
