Sue Bird’s worldwide fame and feats are fairly legendary. She has gained 5 Olympic gold medals, together with 4 FIBA World Cups. These international distinctions make her a triumphant story. However, an attention-grabbing story is left for her to share from the time she made the nation proud.
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As a Husky, Sue Bird led UConn to 2 NCAA championships in 2000 and 2002. Then after entering into the WNBA and being drafted first general, she rapidly grew to become a power to be reckoned with securing a file 4 WNBA championships and successful titles in three completely different many years. But the champ had her attention-grabbing moments too, particularly when pilots took her first Olympic gold medal.
“Everybody Wanted To Touch It”
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In her particular Women’s Day look on ‘The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon’, WNBA veteran Sue Bird shares the wild story about her first Olympic gold medal being taken away by the pilots on her flight again from Athens. She says, “A flight attendant came up to me and asked, ‘Hey, are you Sue Bird? Do you have your gold medal on you? The pilots would like to see it.’ “
Although she gave her medal for the pilots to see, what went on was something unexpected for her as she puts it, “Before I knew it, that medal was, like, up and down the aisles. Everybody — everybody just wanted to touch it,” which gave her a distinct sense of resonance from the individuals, “the Olympics at all times meant one thing for me, and that’s once I was like, ‘Oh, this is different. This is a different level of fame. Everybody’s cheering for you. Everybody desires you to win, see you succeed. It’s a very completely different factor.’ “
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It was her first Olympic gold medal that she had gained within the 2004 Summer Olympics held in Athens. She clinched the celebrated medal by taking part in alongside her fellow Huskies – Swin Cash and Diana Taurasi, but taking part in a pivotal function and securing USA’s 74-63c victory over Australia.
Athletes like Sue Bird have left an eternal mark on individuals’s hearts and within the historical past of girls’s basketball. However, there may be nonetheless one factor that lingers on in anticipation. Let’s take a deep dive and attempt to search the reply.
If the Olympic gold is actual gold?
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The reply to this query has modified with the change in occasions. Currently, it has been acknowledged by the International Olympic Committee that an official Olympic gold medal should include no less than 92.5% silver, and should comprise a minimal of 6 grams of gold.
To perceive its significance, now we have to go back a few steps in history. In historic Greece, there have been no medals given to the athletes, as a substitute, they got wreaths made out of olive branches of an olive tree in Olympia. This custom continued till the primary fashionable Olympic Games in 1896. This was additionally the primary yr to ever award medals.
However, the winners of every occasion acquired a silver medal whereas the runner-up acquired bronze. Notably, the 1900 Olympic Games noticed a slight transition because the finishers attaining first place had been awarded gold plates and silver medals, nonetheless, in solely particular occasions, as majority of the occasions had been being contested for cups and trophies. This was the primary Olympics the place silver and bronze medals had been awarded to the 2nd and third place finishers. Moreover, all of the medals had been sq..
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Now, coming to the modern-day medal system, it didn’t happen till the 1904 Olympic Games held in St. Louis, Missouri. These Games had been the primary to award conventional gold, silver, and bronze medals to the highest three athletes in every occasion, the place gold medals consisted of strong gold because the steel was less expensive to acquire earlier than World War I. The custom was adopted up till 1912.
Once once more, the host international locations began using gold-plated silver in medals, i.e. the core of the medal is made from silver, with a skinny layer of gold on the surface giving the looks of a gold medal. The logic behind this strategy is that gold, compared to silver, is an especially comfortable steel and might be simply bent or broken compared to the silver-plated ones.
