Manufacturing Details

Designed by the same artists and created at the same time, the 2010 Winter Paralympic medals are similar to the Olympic medals, but are a squared circle and feature a raven on a totem rising.

On the reverse side, both sets of medals include the official names of the Games in English and French as well as Vancouver 2010's emblems, the name of the sport, and the event the medal was awarded in. On the Paralympic medals, Braille is also used.

Both sets of medals were manufactured by The Royal Canadian Mint, with metals from Vancouver-based mining company Teck Resources' operations in Canada, Alaska, Chile, and Peru. A total of 615 Olympic and 399 Paralympic medals were made. Collectively:

• 2.05 kg of Teck's gold were used, with 6 g of gold plating used for each gold medal
• 1,950 kg of silver was used for the silver medals
• 903 kg of copper were provided by Teck for the bronze medals
• 6.8 metric tonnes of scrap circuit board was diverted from landfills to make them
• 1,014 different crops of the two master artworks were laser etched into each one-of-a-kind medal
• Each medal is more than 500 grams (more than 1 pound), among the heaviest of all Olympic medals
• Each medal ribbon can hold up to 90 kg (nearly 200 pounds).