Charitable Gift Giving

For the last few weeks, we’ve been highlighting great Olympics souvenirs where proceeds go to support the athletes of the US Olympic Team.

For the next 7 days, we’ll highlight one new product each evening from the US Olympic Shop.

Today’s Olympic Souvenir is this pair of very stylish crew socks with the Beijing 2008 logo and the Olympic rings.

We all buy crew socks these days, but do you know what the history of the word is? According to the American Heritage dictionary, a crew sock is “A warm, usually ribbed sock,” named as such “from its use by rowers”.

And speaking of rowing, today marked the conclusion of crew events at the 2008 Olympics. The US brought home one bronze (the Men’s Eight), one silver (Michelle Guerette in the women’s single sculls), and one gold (a dramatic upset win by the Women’s Eight). Here’s a picture of the women’s team accepting their gold medals (and of course, no one wears socks anymore).

I’m surprised the sport isn’t given a little more exposure, given its prominence at our country’s best universities, but with performances like this, hopefully more young people will be inspired for years to come!

Cheer on Team USA and check back here each day to track their progress on this official medal count widget.