medalii

UPDATE 1-Olympics-Beijing unveils medals with jade flourish

By Nick Mulvenney

BEIJING, March 27 (Reuters) - The 150-gram metal discs that form the focus of the dreams of thousands of athletes preparing for the Beijing Olympics were unveiled in the Chinese capital on Tuesday.

The gold, silver and bronze medals incorporate a distinctive band of jade, a double-dragon loop for the lanyard to thread through, and are slightly bigger than those of previous Games.

"This elegant design of medal represents a combination of Chinese culture and the Olympic spirit," Jiang Xiaoyu, vice president of the Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, said at a ceremony in the Capital Museum.

Jiang was joined by table tennis great Deng Yaping and her former coach Cai Zhenhua to unveil the three medal designs on a stage, beside which sat a countdown clock showing 500 days, five hours, 30 minutes and 27 seconds until the Games began.

The design was selected from 265 submitted from all over China and the wider world with around 6,000 medals being produced for the Games.

The winning entry chosen by the nine-member committee came from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing.

"We chose jade because it is an innovative design and it represents virtue and honour in traditional Chinese culture," said Pan Gongkai, the president of the academy.

"Gold is valuable but jade is invaluable" is a traditional Chinese saying.

DISCTINCTIVE

Clinton Dines of BHP Billiton, medals sponsors of the Games, said there had been much discussion of the jade, which encircles the Beijing Olympic logo on the medals.

"The quality is relative to the stature of the medals, the lighter finer jade is in the gold while the bronze has the greener jade," he said.

Dines said BOCOG had lobbied hard for the medal to be larger than those of previous Olympics.

"Part of it is the design, if you make the jade band it's too thin, it's too brittle.

"But also BOCOG are very keen that everything about the Games be distinctive. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) are also very protective about the medal design."

BHP Billiton will provide the materials for the medals from their mines around the world with Olympic champions getting a gold-plated silver prize.

The jade will come from China.

"We are not jade miners," Dines added. "The jade is a symbol of China so it's important that it comes from China."

The 2008 Olympics open on Aug. 8, 2008 with the first gold medal likely to be won the following day in weightlifting, although the final schedule will not be finalised until August.