2018 – A Platinum Trophy for the Athletics World Cup
Following on the Olympics fever of 2012 and 2016 UK Athletics were keen for a new tournament on the Athletics calendar, the Athletics World Cup. The top 8 ranking countries in the world to compete in a two day tournament.
The results of this are history, but our small role was to create a big prize. Our remit, to oversee the production of a platinum trophy and 55 winners medals, for the victorious team.
As is often the case in these projects, we were on a tight timescale. For the trophy, once we had a design concept we needed to find a company who were familliar with traditional goldsmithing techniques as well as modern technology, as everything was going to be needed. We went to our friends at DA Soley (who we regularly collaborate with on different projects) – to get them to work their magic, and deliver a final piece worthy of an international sporting tournament.
Meanwhile, we also got on with creating the winners medals –simpler in that we liked the ‘fronds’ (the wreath like AWC logo) and expanded these into a brooch which could be featured in the centre of each winners medal, as well as worn separately. However, there was still a lot of production required to cast out basic shapes, and refine them into something which was not going to be too heavy.
It all sounds quite simple here – it wasn’t! But it was a very rewarding project with the end results we achieved, and an enjoyable experience as I got to roar away with 25,000 other athletics fans and see the winners (sadly not the UK) collect their platinum prizes.
