In the run-up to the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Games, you may recall, there was a large flap surrounding the bidding campaign to bring the Games to Utah. During that turbulence, public support for the Games waned. One local company, O.C. Tanner, played a special part in keeping them on track. And it was, as they say, the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
“Our CEO worked behind the scenes with Olympic leadership and our board to commit a sizable chunk of our charitable donations to the United States Olympic Committee,” says Sandra Christensen, the Vice President of O.C. Tanner’s Awards Division. The donation would be manifest in three familiar Olympic denominations: bronze, silver and gold. O.C. Tanner produced and donated the medals for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. The 2002 gold and silver medals were the heaviest Olympic medals ever created and, for the first time in Olympic history, the medals were varied for each sport, featuring 16 unique artists’ renderings of the various snow sports featured in the Games.
Thus began a legacy of partnership between O.C. Tanner and the USOC (now the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee—USPOC).
Following the success of the 2002 Games, O.C. Tanner’s Awards Division was tapped to design the commemorative rings each U.S. athlete receives for making Team USA. Now, going on 13 Olympics, the company has presented more than 10,000 rings to every U.S. Olympic and Paralympic athlete who makes Team USA.
The rings, Christensen says, become a vital part of the athlete’s Olympic journey.
“It is the one thing they are guaranteed if they make Team USA,” she says. “Making the team itself is a huge accomplishment and this ring acknowledges that. Not all of the athletes will make the podium and earn a medal, but they all get their ring.”
Veteran athletes who have made Team USA for multiple Games strive to “collect all five,” Christensen says. “So they have one ring for every finger.”
Two years ago, snowboarding legend Shaun White told GQ Sports that his first Team USA ring (he has five total), earned when he was just 19 years old, is one of the 10 things he can’t live without. (Note to Shaun: If the rings are lost, O.C. Tanner will replace them.)
“Not a lot of athletes are going to carry their medals around,” Christensen chuckles. “So the ring becomes this subtle reminder for them and something they cherish.”
Read more about Utah’s lasting Olympic influence, here!
