But in the months following the minor local damage to buildings and overall nervousness inspired by the event, Russia has gradually warmed up to the meteor event as a bit of national history. Now those sentiments are set to be immortalized in a new design scheduled to debut in the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Slated to begin in February of 2014, the games, which will be held in Sochi, Russia, will award a specially designed gold medal that will include fragments of the 10-ton meteor that disintegrated about 20 miles above Siberia.

According to a report in Russia's RIA Novosti, Chelyabinsk Region Culture Minister Alexei Betekhtin said, "We will hand out our medals to all the athletes who will win gold on that day, because both the meteorite strike and the Olympic Games are the global events."