What's the true price for an Olympic gold medal?
If you really want a Winter Olympics gold metal, you can buy a duplicate from China for between 60 and 70 dollars. The set of three (gold, silver, and bronze) goes for around a 100 and 50 dollars.
If you wish to earn an authentic one by competing, the price is considerably higher.
Many of us have seen the movie “Cool Runnings” where some guys from Jamaica got hold of a used bobsled and competed in the Olympics. That may have caused us to think such competition is comparatively cheap and simple. I could not, however, find a single used bobsled on eBay, and I suspect such a vehicle is out of just about everybody’s price range.
Curling appears to be a non-dangerous sport that the average person could master without too much trouble. The stones used in that sport, however, are all mined from a special granite deposit on an island in Scotland and sell for around $750 each. A complete set comes in at around $13,000. That’s supposed to be a gentlemen’s pastime that doesn’t employ umpires.
This year, however, both the men’s and women’s curling teams were accused of cheating by touching a stone after it crosses the service line. It would be a terrible thing to spend $13,000 on stones and then be beaten by crooked players illegally touching stones.
Other sports are both expensive and dangerous. In this year’s competition I witnessed one ski jumper land on his head. Then, of course, there’s the example of Lindsey Vonn who was skiing downhill injured and broke her hip and leg bones because of a fall. She was helicoptered to the hospital and watched the entire Winter Olympics on television from her hospital bed.
Ice dancing is a particularly beautiful sport which requires thousands of hours of practice. The best dancers this year, however, were passed over for the gold because a French judge inflated the marks of the French dancing team and radically reduced the marks of the superior American team.
For some inexplicable reason there is no rule excluding judges from the countries of contestants or requiring that the high and low judge’s marks be excluded. Imagine practicing sixteen hours a day for four years and then being beaten by a pair who made multiple errors but were favored by the judge from a particular nation.
Some people still may wish to compete in the Winter Olympics even though they haven’t been selected by their national team. One girl from the United States, for example, had a mother who was Chinese American and was accepted as a representative by China. Every year a couple of Americans end up competing as a member of foreign teams.
This year, I noticed that Ireland only had four athletes in the Olympics and didn’t win a single medal. Since my great grandfather on my father’s side built a sailboat and sailed to Philadelphia from Ireland, I even wondered whether the Irish Olympic Committee might choose me as an athlete four years from now if I volunteered to pay for my own food, lodging, and transportation. If you happen to have a full set of curling stones (or the $13,000 to buy a set), please let me know. Also, please check your garage for a bobsled. It’s about time some country was represented by an 85-year-old athlete.
The next Winter Olympics will be held in the French Alps. I’ve never been East of Paris, but I imagine the mountains there will be beautiful and cold. It would be quite an experience to win the gold or even survive the competition. It would be much safer, however, to just send my $65 to China.