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Gold and jade unveiled as basis for Beijing medals

Eight-year-old singer Aerfa, from China's Xinjiang Province, displays the medals for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games at the launch ceremony in Beijing yesterday. PHOTO: AP

Gold and jade -- which signify honor and virtue in Chinese culture -- have been unveiled as the two key elements in the 2008 Beijing Olympic medals.

The winning design for the gold medal centers on three components in a center circle: the Beijing Olympic logo, the five Olympic rings and "Beijing 2008." This inner circle is surrounded by a ring of jade with a gold-plated rim on the outside.

The medals were unveiled at a one-hour ceremony in the Capital Museum yesterday, w elcomed by folk music, rock music and a shower of gold confetti.

The gold, silver and bronze medals will carry the same design, with a finer white jade in the gold medal, a slightly darker shade in the silver medal, and a green jade in the bronze medal. The flip side of the medal carries a design based on the roots of the Olympics in Greece.

Officials said 265 design proposals were received from inside China and worldwide, with a nine-member panel picking the winner.

"The panel was looking for something that unmistakably was associated with China, and everyone agreed jade was that symbol," said Clinton Dines, a member of the panel and president of the China division of BHP Billiton.

Australia-based BHP Billiton is an Olympic sponsor and the world's largest mining company, with revenue in 2006 of US$39.1 billion.

Officials said the winning entry came from a design team at the Beijing Central Academy of Fine Arts.

Dines said about 6,000 medals would be made for the Games, with the design for the Paralympic medals announced later this year.

The jade would come from China, with BHP Billiton providing the other materials, Dines said.

"We will provide those materials from a variety of our operations around the world," Dines said. "We have a wide range of mines."

Dines said the medals would be slightly heavier and larger than other Olympics medals, with the average medal weighing about 150 grams. Beijing officials want the 2008 Summer Games to be unique, and spending on them is dwarfing other Olympics.

"As we got into it [the judging], it became clear that all the Chinese guys in the design committee were very concerned about how this design would be seen by the world," Dines said. "This is important to China and they want the design to represent China."
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