Faster

The IOC mandates the minimum amount of metal for the medals, the medals have to be a certain weight. The gold medals have to be a gold/silver alloy (similar to ones used for non-bullion gold coins) that has at least 6 grams of gold (about 105 euros at todays prices). They have not been pure in a very long time, it would be too expensive because most medals at at least a kilogram. To put that in prespective the RCM just released a 1 kilogram coin at 36,000 CND, that is unrealist for medals for the Olympics. Doing some rough math, it would mean for the gold medal to be pure that it would have about 22 ounces of gold or about 7,500 pounds sterling. Not to mention refining and minting costs.The silver and bronze metals must be mint quality pure 0.9999. The Chinese are fastly become a world leader in quality bullion production with there panda silver and gold one ounce coins. They are still far behind the much more advanced Australian, Canadian and British mints which are the three world leaders. Some (SLC being the most obvious example) go overboard in metal quality and composition, those medals were massive in comparison to Sydney's and Naganos and solid metal. Also jade is not something that is cheap, high quality jade (which the Chinese are probably using in these medals) and the size probably runs about 300 dollars per medal. The white jade is probably closer to 400 because its rarer. I remember reading that sydneys medals were about 1,200 AUD for the golds, 700 AUD for the silvers and about 400 AUD for the bronze

I think that there are better ways of repersenting Nike, I don't mind the Hellenication of the medals, I just don't like the new design, with the stadium I just think its too busy.

I think this deisgn better than the new one Beijing is really not doing anything new or original with the use of jade, Albertville used glass, Lillehammer used granite and Nagano used laquer. The 6 grams of gold only is 105 euros, thats not a lot of gold

They are nice, but I still much prefer the old design compared to the new one, I find the new one ugly and too busy.

A good riot would be nice.

There are two full sets available through the mint, one for 23.99 and one for 29.99. Its a slow release for the individual coins.

They can only be bought from Canada, so that as many are available here as possible instead of the usually 30 to 40% being sold out of country (primarily to the US and Germany).

Not really, its fairly easy to go to RBC and buy rolls, plus you pay face value at RBC, but through the mint you buy a 25% surcharge on rolls.

Overblowing a non-issue. The tectonic activity and the characterists of the fault are not consitant with what is being described. the formation of tsnumai's are rare and earthquakes over 9 even rarer. The likelihood of any of this happening in the near future is close to zero. 2004 was an event that will probably never be repeated in any of our lifetimes. There is probably a great chance of an earthquake is in Missouri, there hasn't been one in about a 100 years.

It would be nice if they found a way to take the roof of and have a open stadium.

Can't people just shut up and look for a minute. There isn't enough athletes, countries or competition for women's ski jumping. Also there are sports that only women compete in because of lack of male athletes, rthymic gynmanstics and snycro for starters.

God hope Stephen Dion wins the liberal leadership, the author of the Clearity Act is alright by me.

True, Quebec would have to seperate from now till 2010 to have their owe team in Vancouver. About the hockey team, the IIHF told the Quebeckers that it is impossible to have their own team unless they become independent.

The torch relay will be November to February, guess what happens in the North at those times, darkness and shitloads of it, sure go to Yellowknife, Whitehorse and I-whatever, but thats it, a coupel of days and few flights.

The first thing is that besides Canada, USA, Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic and Canada, no other teams have a spot, France, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Slovenia, Slovakia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Norway and Japan have to go through a qualifying tournament to get the remaining 4 or 6 spots. Also the timing for the games is determined before the draws, therefore it is possible that Canada and the USA will be playing afternoon games in 2010 no matter how much NBC and Bell paid for the rights. In SLC the USA and Canada bother played afternoon games, hell the final was an afternoon game, so that throws that line of thought out the window. In fact I believe the schedule is the first major thing that comes out leading to the games, before the look, and other stuff.

What does this have to do with Vancouver 2010?

Not true, rowing and canoe/kayaking are placed at different times in the Olympic schedule.

In Canada most of the economic activity happens in one area, the Windsor to Quebec City corridor. There has been talk for the last couple of years to build a high speed system to connect Windsor-London-Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec City, it had gone as far as looking for a contract (a German company was in the lead) before the planned stalled and nothing happened. Right now to go from Toronto to Montreal driving, it is about 7 hours, the same with our current train system, with the high speed, they were talking about 2.5 to 3 hours.

Both suck ass, big time. (Two weeks of university and I am so much more articulate eh?) I hate them both, neither reflect Canada or even BC or at the very least Vancouver

Because of Ski Jumping Canada's mismanagement of funds in the late 80's and 90's causing the closure of Big Thunder in Thunder Bay and because the one in Calgary is so underused it has to be rented out for weddings, bar/bat mitzvahs, and **** like that. Plus its Ski Jumping, other then Northern Europeans and Japanese, who gives a flying ****?

If it is as Baron has described the logical cities would be Athens Istanbul Rome Berlin Paris Madrid or Barcelona London Toronto Vancouver Los Angelos San Francisco New York City Sydney and then fellow Asian cities like Ho Chi Minh City Bangkok Delhi Mumbai Islamabad Seoul I would say Tokyo would that would cause an upraising and than all the major cities in China, I would assume it would entire in Hong Kong

That rout would be impossible with the current political climate.

So, China, Japan, Australia, Canada, India, South Africa, Brazil, Spain, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Italy, Sweden, Croatia, Greece, Turkey, and the other 201 nations that have contracts with the IOC that far outweighs what the US pays. CBC's current contract was 9 figures, the same is probably true of every major country. The competition for the Olympic rights in the US is the reason they pay more then other countries were its one or two companies bidding. That is not the IOC's fault and the IOC, BOGOC and the athletes. Also Coca Cola's contract with the IOC is in the low billions, so the IOC can survive without the US.

Baron 4 billion people alone watch the Opening ceremonies for at least one half hour. So that throughs your 1.5 billion out the window. Also I said combined audience, as in the viewership numbers from every half hour of every hour of everyday for all 17 days. As with the World Cup which had a viewership of 32 billion combined from all 64 matches. The same thing happens with the Olympics. Though other then the opening an closing ceremonies, for some events there is easily viewership of between 100 million and 500 million. Think about it, how many hours would you say you watch per games. I beat that almost everyone on here gets counted in the ratings a good 100 times, the average sportsfan maybe 15 to 20 over the fortnight. So maybe about 1.5 billion people are responcible for all the ratings, but the combined ratings would still be a fair bit larger then the population of the earth because of the multiple counting.

A COMBINED AUDIENCE OF CLOSE TO 25 BILLION PEOPLE WATCH THE OLMYPIC GAMES WHEN THEY COME AROUND, THEY AIN'T ALL AMERICANS, IN FACT VIEWERSHIP BY PRESENTATION IS MUCH LOWER IN THE UNITED STATES THEN IN THE NEXT 14 NATIONS. SO NBC CAN SHOVE IT UP THEIR UPTIGHT FCC-BOWING ARSE