Most of the athletes who were awarded Ontario Winter Games medals in March didn’t seem too upset about the typos that were overlooked.
Orillia 2018 Ontario Winter Games organizers will be replacing 175 medals. There were about 1,500 created for the games.
The French translation of the athletes' oath included a misspelled word and an omitted word.
The oath, in English, reads: “For the glory of sport and the honour of our teams in the spirit of true sportsmanship.” In French, the word “équipes” (teams) was left out, as was the letter “p” in “sport.”
When the errors were brought to the attention of organizers, they reached out to medal winners to inform them and to invite them to fill out an online form to have the medals replaced.
“Some felt the symbol of the medal was profound enough,” said Michael Ladouceur, general manager of the games. “We had a lot of people who wanted to keep the original medal.”
Of the medals being replaced, 60 are gold, 60 are silver and 55 are bronze. It will come at a cost of $1,500, and that is covered in the existing budget, Ladouceur said, meaning it won’t have to come out of the legacy fund the City of Orillia received for hosting the games.
Ladouceur was pleased with the response from both English- and French-speaking medallists.
“It was all very positive,” he said. “The last thing we wanted to do was have people insulted.”
The deadline for athletes to request replacement medals was noon Friday. Factoring in production and shipping, Ladouceur expects the athletes will have their new hardware in four to six weeks.
“We’re really happy we were able to contact all the medallists, and we’re looking forward to 2020,” he said.
That’s when Orillia will again host the games.
