Guadalajara Medals Losing Luster?
Some medals awarded at last month’s Pan American Games are already losing their luster.
The Associated Press reports that organizers are busy fielding complaints from athletes whose hardware started to show signs of discoloration soon after last week’s close of competition in Guadalajara.
"COPAG will inform the Olympic Committees that took part in this sporting event of the situation, so that any medal that shows any defect can be returned immediately," says a Sunday statement from the organizing committee.
The Mexican National Mint, meanwhile, is also acknowledging the problem.
"Particularly the copper, a metal that was used to cover the bronze medals, is highly susceptible to oxidation," says a statement from the Casa de Moneda.
"[The Mint] will attend as soon as possible to the replacement of the bronze medals that present the reported discoloration problem."
According to AP, more than a dozen Mexican medal-winners and a couple of Brazilians are among the complainants so far.
The final tally from Guadalajara indicates the 41 participating countries plus NetherlandsAntilles to have won a total of 1,177 medals. Factoring in team sports adds several hundred to the number of medals now floating around the Pan Ams.
Pan Am Tickets Tossed Aside
New evidence indicates the cleanup to Guadalajara 2011 may not be going as smoothly as the Games themselves.
Milenio reports that janitors found thousands of unused and discarded tickets to at least 17 sports when going through athlete accommodations in the Pan American Village.
"There were hundreds, thousands of tickets in the trash," an anonymous source told the Mexican newspaper.
The trashed tickets include both preliminary and final competitions for football, basketball, taekwondo, gymnastics, boxing, weightlifting, athletics, water polo, volleyball, wrestling, tennis, swimming, judo, softball, swimming, table tennis and diving.
At major events such as the Pan American Games, National Olympic Committees are typically provided an allotment of tickets to do with as they please.
For at least some NOCs, that apparently meant tossing them aside.
Written by Matthew Grayson
20 Years at #1: Your best source of news about the Olympics is AroundTheRings.com, for subscribers only.
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