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
Its hard to buy Phelps’ sincerity when he looks borderline stoned in this video:
In this video Watchmojo.com profiles Jamaican Olympic gold sprinter Usain Bolt.
From Fox Sports:
OSLO, Norway (AP) - A physicist has done the math, and says Usain Bolt could have run the 100-meter Olympic final in 9.55 seconds if he had not slowed down to showboat.
“We estimate that he could have finished the race in a time between 9.55 and 9.61,” Norwegian physicist Hans Eriksen said Friday in a telephone interview.
Bolt won the final at the Beijing Olympics last month in 9.69 seconds, shaving 0.03 seconds off the record he set in May.
Eriksen, a physicist at the Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Oslo, said he got the idea to examine just how quick Bolt could have gone after hearing his coach say that the Jamaican could have run 9.52 seconds.
“We saw the final on television and then spent the whole weekend researching,” Eriksen said. “It was fun. We’ve done more serious research work, but this one got far more attention.”Eriksen and his colleagues analyzed TV footage of the race, focusing on Bolt’s position, speed and acceleration, as well as that of runner-up Richard Thompson.
Both sprinters slowed before the finish line, but Bolt’s chest-beating celebration some 20 meters before the line cut his speed more.
“We don’t mean to say that this is the final and ultimate result,” Eriksen was quoted as saying in New Scientist magazine. “Instead, it’s a fun application and simple physics.”
The 100, 200 and now 4×100 all in his back pocket:
Usain Bolt earned a triple-triple of sprint gold medals and world records Friday, an unprecedented Olympic feat that elevated him alongside Michael Phelps as the stars of the Beijing Games.
With his giant strides, he ran a lighting final bend that set anchor Asafa Powell on the way to a record 37.30 seconds in the 4×100 meters, chopping a massive .30 off the mark the United States had held for 16 years.
“Go Asafa!” Bolt shouted after handing over the baton, pointing Powell in the direction of a golden record. And his teammate did exactly that — completing the only great run of his disappointing Olympics to turn reggae into the Olympic anthem of the celebrating Bird’s Nest.
And Bolt, never at a loss for words, was not going to wait for IOC president Jacques Rogge to anoint the superlative of the Beijing Games.
“You can’t explain the feeling you feel after the greatest Olympics ever,” Bolt said.
And who to question him.
Bolt had already set the world record of 9.69 in the 100 and 19.30 in the 200, but that funky Jamaican was aching for an encore.
The men’s relay team failed to reach the Olympic final for the first time since 1912. The women missed for the first time since 1948.
What were you doing last week?
Michael Phelps, golden boy in more ways than one:
The business decisions Phelps makes over the next two years — if not the next two weeks — will be critical. Appearances and endorsement possibilities will be flying from every direction, and he and his longtime agent, Peter Carlisle of Octagon, will have to be careful about their decisions.
Entering the Beijing Games, Phelps was reportedly earning an estimated $5 million annually from corporate endorsements, with deals from companies like AT&T, Visa, PowerBar, Omega and Speedo. Now that he’s won eight gold medals, breaking Mark Spitz’s 36-year-old record of seven in one Olympic Games, many in the sports marketing industry believe Phelps’ corporate income could set new records.
(…)
Octagon’s Carlisle told The Wall Street Journal on Monday that he expects Phelps’ current annual earnings to at least double.
“What is the value of eight golds in Beijing before a prime-time audience in the U.S?” Carlisle told the newspaper. “I’d say $100 million over the course of his lifetime.”
Speedo has already paid him a $1 million bonus for breaking Spitz’s record. Just as records can be broken in the pool, so can contracts on land. According to The Wall Street Journal on Monday, Phelps’ worth to Nike could be $40 million.
Team Canada says no, but everyone else is crying foul. Sure the girls look young, but so do all gymnasts? Read more from the National Post:
BEIJING — They look like they are anywhere between 8 and 11 years old, but five of the six girls on the Chinese gymnastics team hold passports that say they are 16 — the minimum age to be competing in the Olympic gymnastics competition.
In a sport where youth means flexibility — and flexibility means everything — many people in the gymnastics world are questioning just how old these girls really are.
“It’s really bigger than gymnastics,” began Carol-Angela Orchard, who coaches Canadian gymnast Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs. For the record, she is one of few coaches here who is not accusing the Chinese of cheating, heading into Wednesday’s team competition.
“I can’t go to the Canadian government and say, ‘Please give me passport for Elyse that will allow her to compete at the Olympic Games [before she is of age]. That simply can not happen,” Orchard said. “So, if it’s a passport that the government supplies; if they have documentation from their government that says that is their age, then that’s their age.”
Bela Karolyi, former coach to Nadia Comaneci and Mary Lou Retton, now coaches the pixies of the United States team. He spoke out last week about the Chinese.
“This is a joke,” he said. “We are people who have had children of our own, so we know what a 16-year-old should look like. They should not look like they are seven and maybe still in diapers.”
The New York Times reported irregularities in the ages of the Chinese gymnasts last month, finding online records that showed two gymnasts, He Kexin and Jiang Yuyuan, may only be 14. The state-run Chinese Central Television website also posted a profile of Yang Yilin indicating she too was 14, the Times reported.
In turn, the Chinese have produced documentation which satisfies the International Olympic Committee, a fact that does not surprise Canadian coach Tony Smith at all.
“[False documentation] was pretty [common] among all the Eastern Bloc countries, when the Communists were running the show,” Smith said, a fact of which the Romanian Karolyi is no doubt well aware. “It’s the mentality that, through sport, we’re going to demonstrate our superiority over the non-Communist nations. It’s been around a long time. Unfortunately we don’t get to play by the same rules.
“It’s no different than the whole drug testing thing,” he said, referring to countries that stringently test for drugs only to make sure their athletes show up clean for competitions. “Whereas in Canada we say, ‘You tested positive? See ya later.’ “
The crux of the problem lies in the fact that the only way for the IOC to verify an athlete’s age is by passport or birth certificate — both government-issued documents.
“It’s impossible,” Smith said. “It’s all speculation, but some of those kids, they barely look 12, 13, years old. There are a few of them that are legitimately older than 16. Yet every now and then you see the phenomenon coming up, then all of the sudden she’s old enough to compete.”
Karolyi is adamant that some of these girls are too young. “What the Chinese are doing is a slap in the face of the whole world, but there is nothing we can do about it.”
The Chinese gymnastics federation (FIG) issued a statement last week claiming the matter was cleared up.
“The FIG has received confirmation from the International Olympic Committee that all passports are valid for all gymnasts competing in the Beijing Olympic Games,” they said in a statement. “Stringent control measures are taken at the time of athlete accreditation for all official FIG competitions. Further, all athlete ages for the Beijing Olympic Games are consistent with the FIG records for all past FIG competitions.”
The Canadian women’s team has been in a practice group with the Chinese during the Olympic competition. “Those girls I see at the gym look eligible to me,” Orchard said. “They are magnificent gymnasts. I could sit there all day and watch them.
“Their physique is even smaller than the typical North American child, so it is [exacerbated] even more. They are the best in the world, especially on bars and beam, but they are just tinier people.”
In fact, the minimum age in Olympic gymnastics has been raised from 14 to 15, to 16 over the years, as those outside the sport grew concerned with the work regimen demanded of 12-and 13-year-olds in preparation for the Games.
“It’s difficult to understand our sport. The physique is so different,” Orchard said. “To my mind, 15 is the perfect age.
“In this sport, we do select very tiny packages. Even in Canada you have girls where you go, ‘Oh my God. They look like they’re only 10.’ They’re 15.”
This is so obviously a bad idea its shocking that so many of the Spanish players seem confused about the expected backlash…
From the AP:
BEIJING — Players on Spain’s Olympic basketball team defended a photo in an ad showing the players using their fingers to apparently make their eyes look more Chinese.
The photo, which has been running as a newspaper spread in Spain since Friday, shows all 15 players making the gesture on a basketball court adorned with a Chinese dragon. The photo was part of a publicity campaign for team sponsor Seur, a Spanish courier company, and is being used only in Spain.
This photo of Spain’s men’s Olympic basketball team has team members defending the squad and apologizing if the photo offended anyone.
“It was something like supposed to be funny or something but never offensive in any way,” said Spain center Pau Gasol, who also plays for the Los Angeles Lakers. “I’m sorry if anybody thought or took it the wrong way and thought that it was offensive.”
Point guard Jose Calderon said the team was responding to a request from the photographer.
“We felt it was something appropriate, and that it would be interpreted as an affectionate gesture,” Calderon, who plays for NBA’s Toronto Raptors, wrote on his ElMundo.es blog. “Without a doubt, some … press didn’t see it that way.”
International media criticized the photo. London’s Daily Telegraph said Spain’s “poor reputation for insensitivity toward racial issues has been further harmed” by the photo.
“This was clearly inappropriate, but we understand the Spanish team intended no offense and has apologized,” Emmanuelle Moreau, a spokeswoman for the International Olympic Committee, said in an e-mail. “The matter rests there as far as the IOC is concerned.”
The OCA, an organization representing Asian-Pacific Americans, also found the photo disturbing. “It is unfortunate that this type of imagery would rear its head at a time that is supposed to be about world unity,” George Wu, the group’s deputy director, said in a statement.
The Spanish women’s basketball team also posed for a photo doing the same thing, and four members of Argentina’s women’s Olympic soccer team were shown making similar faces in a photograph published last week.
Gasol said it was “absurd” people were calling the gesture racist.
“We never intended anything like that,” he said.
The Spanish basketball federation declined to comment Wednesday.
A Seur official in Madrid said the company had not intended to offend the Chinese people, but has no immediate plans to withdraw the ad, which is scheduled to run on selected days until the end of the Games.
Seur has not received any formal protest or complaint from Chinese authorities, the official said on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak publicly about the situation.
It’s not the first time Spanish sports has encountered questions over racist attitudes, and the photo comes at a time when Madrid is vying to host the Olympics.
“We’re surprised by the remarks of racism,” said Juan Antonio Villanueva, communications director for the city’s 2016 Olympic bid. “Spain is not a racist country — quite the opposite.”
Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton was subjected to verbal abuse at a Barcelona circuit in February, while former Spain coach Luis Aragones also used a racist remark about France striker Thierry Henry to motivate one of his players. “Monkey” chants rained down on England’s black players during an international friendly against Spain in a match played in Madrid in 2004, soon after Aragones’ outburst.
The basketball federation had just signed a four-year contract extension with Chinese clothing brand Li Ning shortly after arriving in the Chinese capital for the Games.
“We have great respect for the Far East and its people, some of my best friends in Toronto are originally Chinese, including one of our sponsors, the brand Li Ning,” Calderon wrote. “Whoever wants to interpret it differently is completely confusing it.”
Frank Zhang, Li Ning’s director of government and public affairs, played down the incident.
“We don’t think this is an insulting gesture to the Chinese,” Zhang said. “In fact, the gesture shows that the Spanish team is so humorous, relaxing and cute. They sat around a dragon pattern, which we think showed respect to the Chinese.
“Li Ning Ltd. will not change any business plans with the Spanish team because of this,” Zhang added. “People should focus on great Olympic Games instead of something else.”
World champion Spain is 2-0 at the Olympics after rallying to beat China 85-75 Tuesday while consistently getting booed.
As athletes from all over the world arrive in Beijing ahead of the start of the Olympics some members of the U.S. cycling team arrive wearing anti-pollution masks.
A U.S. team official said members of the cycling squad were wearing the respiratory masks but declined further comment.
One man wore a mask that covered the nose and mouth while also wearing a white T-shirt with ‘BEIJING’ in black letters across the chest.
Beijing’s pollution problem has been a major cause for concern for athletes who fear it may impact their health and sporting performance.
A cycling official later tried to play down the incident. “I don’t believe there was any statement trying to be made”, said Andrea Smith, spokeswoman for USA cycling.
Cautious? Crazy? Excessive? You be the judge:
PLAY
