Why Is There No “Asbestos Medal” In The Olympics?
… Because Unlike Gold And Silver, Asbestos Is UGLY
Gold was discovered in Colorado in 1858, right here in Denver. Later, in the areas surrounding what are now the towns of Idaho Springs and Central City, more gold was discovered, and the Colorado gold rush was on. Because gold is a beautiful, valuable rock.
Gold was also discovered twelve times by the US team in the recently-concluded Winter Olympics. Beautiful!
Silver was discovered in the early 1860s in Colorado, with the significant deposits near Georgetown making that town the “Silver Queen of the Rockies,” and a serious candidate for the Colorado territorial capitol. Did you know this? Whether you did or not, I bet you knew that silver is also a beautiful and valuable rock.
Silver was also discovered by the US Olympic team twelve times.
Nobody knows where bronze was discovered. It was a long time ago. (Possibly in the “bronze age?”) Many teams discovered this rock, sometimes described as “meh,” but still pretty beautiful, in the Winter Olympic games. Even Belgium discovered bronze before the games concluded.
Gold may be considered the most beautiful rock ever discovered. But the ugliest rock? That dubious distinction belongs to asbestos.
The first serious North American mining of asbestos in modern times occurred in Canada in the nineteenth century. (Canada also discovered silver in the Winter Olympics hockey final, when their efforts to discover gold came up short. Sorry, Canada.) (Actually, not sorry.)
Canadians, and others, began mining asbestos because it was discovered that many products could be cheaply made with this ugly rock, and that those products would have resistance to fire. But a few years later, certain types of incurable cancer (like mesothelioma and asbestosis) were also discovered.
Further discoveries led to the understanding that asbestos, that ugliest of rocks, was the principal cause of those incurable diseases. So, certain more-enlightened nations, like America, moved to make asbestos illegal.
Unfortunately, un-enlightened (but highly compensated) lobbyists kept asbestos from being completely illegal in the U.S. You may not know it, but while it’s still illegal in America to mine asbestos or make stuff with it, it’s still perfectly legal to import it, and tons of products containing the ugly rock arrive here annually.
What does all this mean to you, the casual observer of the Winter Olympics? It means that, know it or not, you could be surrounded by ugly, cancer-causing asbestos. It’s in building materials included in many of our homes and offices, and even in places you wouldn’t guess, like faux jewelry and make-up.
If it isn’t “disturbed,” asbestos isn’t dangerous. But if you have a small house fire, or a plumbing leak, or a DIY project gone bad, microscopic asbestos particles may well be released into your air, prolonged exposure to which would be very, very ugly for you and your family.
The answer? Get your air tested by a reputable testing firm (we don’t do the testing ourselves, since that’s a conflict of interest, but we can recommend a good tester). And if there’s a problem, we’ll bring in the state-of-the-art equipment needed and keep at it until your air is asbestos free.
You know why there’s no “Asbestos Medal” in the Olympics? Because asbestos is an UGLY rock. If you suspect you might have a problem at your place with airborne asbestos, give us a call, and we’ll make sure you and your people are safe from one of the most ugly contaminations out there.
