[johnjimbc]

I had to smile when I saw your post, Kitchisippi. As a former resident of another federal center of power - Washington, DC - whose association with "big, bad government" often overshadowed what a really amazing city it was, I can appreciate your irritation on that front.

I did note that the Ottawa mint is producing all the medals, which is impressive.

Pinion, I don't know that the posters here always overly praise everything. I have witnessed some mighty disagreements and negative opinions on occasion during my time reading and commenting. In this case, I just think there's a bit of rallying because, love them or hate them, the medals are unique and outside the box and took ingenuity to conceive, devise, and create. I think its one of those cases where folks are rallying against those outside the process who are throwing easy daggers. One senses those same naysayers would have been ready to complain no matter what medals the creative team would have produced.

That's how I see it anyway. I like the medals a lot . . . I think they are cool and rather beautiful. As I love the rolling mountains here, I'm thrilled they found a way to capture that in the medal design. I find it cool that they carried over the visual imagery of the Games with the curves and arcs in the medals as well. From a creative perspective, that impresses me.

I can appreciate that some people won't like the design as much. But some of the response was just viscerally aghast in a way that, frankly, didn't seem warranted or genuine. Plus, after reading some of the public reaction comments, it seems they are much more liked than disliked. Most of the "negative press" came from just that - folks commenting to the press - or folks in the press commenting - in a way that seemed more political and agenda-driven than any motivation to provide an objective critique of the design.