Snow Skills

The annoucement of the medal design for the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turino included the presence of famed skier Jean-Claude Killy, Chairman of the IOC’s Coordination Commission. It’s an ideal choice, given that Jean-Claude won three gold medals at the 1968 Winter Games on his home turf in Grenoble, France. He was only the second skier to ever accomplish that feat (Austria’s Toni Sailer at the 1956 Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy Games was first), and no skier has since won more than two Alpine events at any one Olympic Games. Killy’s skiing triple crown in 1968 plus a World Cup Tour victory that year (his second in a row) made him the most recognized skier of the 60s and 70s and elevated him to the status of a ‘Great’ of skiing history.

What’s really cool about the 2006 Olympic Medal Design is that it has a hole in the middle. The designer incorporated features and traditions of Italian history and includes a hole to reveal the place where the heart beats, the symbol of life itself when it’s hanging around the neck of a victorious Olympian.

What’s further really cool about the Winter Olympics is how its athletes and lore are so unique. Ask any skier over the age of 40 and they will know who Killy is. And decades from now, I expect our generation will remember the Olympics in Italy where a select few earned medals that had a hole to represent the heart of an athlete.

Consider that there were no less than 925 medals awarded at the Summer Games in Athens, 2004. The total number of medals to be awarded at Torino, 2006 will only be 82.