PyeongChang 2018 reminds us that Olympic prowess is not just about track and field, gymnastics, cycling and swimming, wonderful sports though they all are.
Speed skating, skiing in all its forms and, to my mind the most inexplicably compelling sport to watch of all, curling, create as much excitement.
Of course, for auctioneers, dealers and collectors, the Summer and Winter Olympics provide additional excitement in the form of rare collectables, from promotional posters to medals and Olympic torches, all of which enjoy competitive markets.
Although the modern Olympics started in Athens in 1896, it wasn’t until the St Louis games of 1904 that the tradition of gold, silver and bronze medals was instituted. Designs became standardised in 1928, with one side carrying an image of the goddess of victory clutching a palm and the winner’s crown, and the other side depicting an Olympic champion being carried by the crowd. It was only at the 1972 games that a new tradition began: commissioning an artist to design to design the reverse for each games. In 2004 a new design for the goddess also featured the Olympic stadium.
The auction record for an Olympic medal? (Actually for any piece of Olympic memorabilia): the $1.46m paid in 2013 for one of the four Olympic golds won by US track and field star Jesse Owens at the 1936 Berlin games, an iconic victory, undermining the host nation Nazis under Adolf Hitler as it showed a black man as superior to the Aryans.
