Sochi Winter Games Gold Medal Winners To Be Given Out-Of-This World Medal

Russian officials said Wednesday that some Gold Medal winners at the Sochi Winter Olympics "are set to be rewarded for their out-of-this-world performances with extra medals embedded with meteorite fragments," according to R-SPORT. The special medals "are on offer to athletes who win their events" on Feb. 15, the one-year anniversary of a meteorite strike that injured 1,600 people, smashing windows and causing other damage in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk. Chelyabinsk Region Culture Minister Alexei Betekhtin said that chunks of that very space rock "are to be chipped off and inserted into the medals." Seven "sets of medals are on offer" on Feb. 15: in the men's 1,500 meter speedskating, the women's 1,000m and men's 1,500 short track, the women's cross-country skiing relay, the men's K-125 ski jump, the women's super giant slalom, and men's skeleton events (R-SPORT, 7/24).