Part 2 - LA84 Foundation

13. Opening, Closing and
Victory Ceremonies
422
Le Comité International Olympique
prie le
de lui faire l'honneur de participer
aux jeux de la XXIV Olympiade
qui auronr lieù à Séoul
du 17 septembre au 2 octobre 1988
Juan Antonio Samaranch
President
80
13.5.3
Manufacturing of the Award
Goods
—————————————–
Production of the medals for
winners and participants
The winners' medals designed by the
Italian Professor Cassioli were used
from the ninth Olympiad in Amsterdam
in 1928 to the 17th Games in Mexico in
1968. At the Munich Games in 1972,
Montreal Games in 1976 and the
Moscow Games in 1980, independent
designs were used on the reverse side
of the medals upon the approval of the
IOC.
The SLOOC began to study matters
related to the winners' medals in 1984
and mapped out the major directions
for the medals' materials and sizes. It
set up a policy to put a unique Koreanstyle
design on the reverse side of the
medals for the official sports.
In October 1986, the SLOOC commissioned
the Korea Security Printing and
Minting Corporation to manufacture
the medals. The corporation submitted
the draft designs to the SLOOC for
deliberation by its advisory committee,
and the final designs of the medals for
winners and participants were
announced publicly in June 1987, after
being endorsed by the IOC Executive
Committee.
The winners' medals showed the
ancient coliseum and the goddess of
victory holding the laurel crowns on
the obverse side on which were
engraved "XXIVth Olympiad Seoul
1988." The back side showed a
pigeon, the symbol of peace, soaring
up, holding a laurel branch in its
mouth, and the Seoul Olympic sash
composed of three Taeguk patterns
from the Korean national flag and five
Olympic rings.
On the obverse side of the participants'
medals were put Korea's
National Treasure No. 1, Namdaemun
(South Gate), flanked by such familiar
motifs in ancient Korean folk paintings
as the mountain, cloud, crane and the
sun. The reverse side showed the Seoul
Olympic sash and the order, venue
and the year of the Games under it.
The participants' medals, which are
the IOC's official commemorative
medals, were presented to all participants
including the athletes and
delegates.
Medals for the demonstration and
exhibition sports had the different
movements of Hodori showing different
sports and letters "XXIVth Olympiad
Seoul 1988" on the front. The reverse
side of the demonstration sports
medals was the same as that of the
official sports medals. The reverse
side of the exhibition sports medals
was made the same with that of the
participants' medals. Such use of
same designs helped down the cost.
Ribbons for the medals were designed
by the SLOOC Design Room. The
ultramarine, orange and red, the major
colors for the Seoul Olympic Games,
were used in a ratio of 3:2:1. The three
colors and white were put together in a
ratio of 1:1. The ribbons were woven
with rayon yarn and were made in the
same way as the ribbons for the stand
for the victory ceremonies and
bouquets.
When the designs for the medals were
determined, the SLOOC assigned
their production to the Korea Security
Printing and Minting Corporation. The
corporation produced the test products
before starting the manufacture of the
medals and after several rounds of
improvements finalized the exact
medal in December 1987. The medals
were manufactured according to the
pertinent provisions in the Olympic
Charter. Gold took up 92.5 percent of
the content of the gold medal, which
was gilded with more than 5 grams of
gold. It was 60mm in diameter and
weighed 146 grams.
Silver constituted 92.5 percent of the
content of the silver medal and the
remaining 7.5 percent of the content
was bronze. It was 60mm in diameter
and weighed 140 grams. The bronze
medal contained 95 percent of bronze,
4 percent copper and 1 percent zinc. It
was also 60mm in diameter.
The participants' medal was made of
bronze in the same size with the
bronze medals. The medal containers
were made of high-quality blue velvet,
giving fresh yet soft impression.
A total of 525 gold, 515 silver and 550
bronze medals were manufactured for
the official sports. For the demonstration
and exhibition sports, 55 gold, 55
silver and 78 bronze medals were
produced. All these medals were
awarded during the Games.
A total of 20,400 participants' medals
were produced and distributed to all
participants through the Olympic Village,
Headquarters Hotel and designated
hotels.
Production of diplomas
The designs of the citations and the
participation diplomas were fixed in
May 1988, and the test products were
made. In June of the same year, the
diplomas were approved by the IOC
President Samaranch during his visit
to Korea. On the citations were printed
weakly the hunting scene from the
warriors' tomb built during Koguryo
Kingdom (37 B.C.-A.D.668). The participation
diplomas were designed to
enhance the image of Korea through
the variations of taeguk, the yin and
yang symbol on its national flag.
Six thousand citations and 23,000 participation
diplomas were produced to
be given to the estimated number of
prize winners and participants. The
citations were presented to those who
were placed first to eighth in the 23
official sports, six demonstration and
exhibition sports. The participation
diplomas were handed out to all athletes,
delegates and other participants
in the Games.
The citations and the participation
diplomas were distributed to all NOC
delegations.
Others
In addition to the medals and
diplomas, awarding stands, medal pillows,
bouquets, ribbons and pendants
were manufactured for the Games.
The awarding stands measured 90cm
x 60cm. The podia for gold medalists
were 60 centimeters high and the
stands for silver and bronze medalists
30 centimeters high. The podia were
painted white on the upper part and on
the lower part were painted three
stripes — ultramarine, orange and red.
The gold medalist's stand was marked
with a symbol of the first place and the
Seoul Games sash, while the stands
for the silver and bronze medalists did
not show the sash but the number
identifying the second and third places
in the competitions.
The medal pillows were 47cm wide,
32cm long and 25cm deep. The pillows
were made of white melamine tray
covered with satin and the Games
sash, which were well becoming to the
traditional Korean costume worn by
the ceremonies personnel.
For the design of bouquets, opinions of
scores of specialists were considered
by the SLOOC. From the many suggestions,
three were referred to the
final screening by the SLOOC and one
of the three was adopted in the end.
The taeguk-patterned fan and the victory
— symbolizing gladiolus and
phoenix were added to the originally
adopted design of the bouquet to promote
the Korean flavor. The ribbons
were designed in the same way as
those for the prize medals were made
to produce a sense of unity.
13.5.4
National Flags and Music
—————————————–
National flags
Production of the national flags
requires extreme caution as it is apt to
cause international discord. The
SLOOC collected materials related to
the national flags from 140 NOCs on
two occasions in March 1985 and July
1987. Based on these materials, the
SLOOC produced the samples of the
national flags with a uniform size of
20cm by 30cm, and began to gather
the confirming signatures from embassies
in Korea and NOCs. By the end of
July 1988, 159 out of the 160 NOCs
which took part in the Games had confirmed
their national flags as manufactured
by the SLOOC. Only Bahamas
failed to make such confirmation.
After several rounds of inter-ministerial
consultations and estimations, the
SLOOC finalized in December 1987
the number of national flags to be
needed at the Games to be around
26,255. It also estimated some
113,000 hand-size flags would be
needed for the Games. The small
sized flags were donated entirely by
the Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
without putting its mark on the flags.