The 2014 Winter Olympics will take place next year in Sochi, Russia, where some of the world’s greatest winter games athletes will gather to represent their country. On Thursday, we got our first official look at the medals that these athletes will be competing for.

Here’s the description from the Sochi organizers:

The Sochi 2014 Olympic and Paralympic medals are unique and feature the Sochi 2014 “Patchwork Quilt” – a mosaic of national designs from the various cultures and ethnicities of the Russian Federation. The medals have been carefully crafted to depict the landscape of Sochi from the sun’s rays reflecting through the snowy mountain tops onto the sandy beaches of the Black Sea coast.

Each medal is 0.4 inches thick, and 4 inches in diameter. The gold medals weigh one pound, the others slightly more. They are the largest and heaviest Olympic medals ever handed out, and there are also more of them (1,300) produced than any other Olympic Games.

What do you think?

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Russia Sochi Medals

Russia Sochi Medals

Russia Sochi Medals

 

[Deadspin]