Olympic Gold Medal - 1984 Los Angeles

It was a surprisingly lovely sunny day yesterday and so I was in the perfect mood to go to town and stroll around (having had my hair cut), combining shopping and leisurely drinking coffee. We have quite a large shopping centre and in the main hall in front of John Lewis there was an exhibition by FINA (World Swimming Governing Body) which covered the history of swimming from the 1st Olympic Games up to 2008. They also had an Olympic Gold from each Games. The medal on the left is the Congressional Medal of Honour (USA's highest honour) which was given to the Olympic squad affected by the 1980 US boycott of the Moscow Games. In my opinion overly generous considering what great feats had been achieved by previous recipients such as George Washington. I am now in the position that I did not expect to be, that I am able to say I have seen every Olympic Gold Medal in the flesh from 1896 up to and including 2012.