The shine on Tom Hall’s Olympic bronze medal is starting to fade.

The well-worn circular memento from the 2008 Olympic Summer Games in Beijing is currently making the rounds with the former paddler, who has spent the last week touring the Yukon.

“I love to show it to people,” the 33-year-old Hall told the Star yesterday from Burwash Landing.

“The medal just gets better with age. The more hands that touch it, the more meaningful it is.”

Hall’s bronze medal came in the C-1 1,000-metre race at the 2008 Olympics, where Canada finished 19th overall with 19 medals.

His medal has always been a symbol of the hard work and dedication of not only himself, but his group of supporters and Canadians as a whole, Hall said.

He hung up his paddle in 2012 to focus on his writing career, but the lessons he learned as an athlete are what he is sharing with Yukon students.

“I had a lot of trouble reading as a kid, but I always wanted to be a writer,” he explained.

Then when he began to paddle competitively at the age of 13, he had to push himself to do better in school in order to be granted time off to train in Florida.

His hard work would eventually pay off, and his medal serves as tangible proof of his success.

Hall said he is trying to impress upon students to work hard at whatever they do, and never be afraid to ask for help.

Hall joined forces with 2008 Olympic weightlifter Jeane Lassen for a two-week tour across the territory to promote physical literacy.

Lassen and Hall are delivering bags of equipment like balls, hula hoops and bean bags to a variety of communities.

On top of that, Lassen said the duo is taking the opportunity to teach children fundamental skills, such as basic movement that defines walking, running and leaping.

“We’re trying to inspire kids to play hard and participate,” said Lassen, the physical literacy co-ordinator for Sport Yukon.

Lassen noted that Hall’s hardware – in the form of a bronze medal – “really matters” to the Yukon students.

The Montreal-born Hall also owns a silver medal from the 2006 world championships and both gold and bronze from the 2003 Pan Am Games.

Hall’s visit to the territory is thanks in part to the Zach and Emily Rural Youth Sport Development Program, Lassen said.

The program, announced by Zach Bell at last year’s Sport Yukon awards night, provides opportunities to young Yukon athletes to access training from Canada’s Olympic athletes and professional coaches.

The grant is supported by fellow Yukon Olympian Emily Nishikawa, Air North and SmartStop Self Storage, who sponsor Bell’s current cycling team.

“My sporting career began with an opportunity to hear from Canadian Olympic wrestler Chris Wilson, when I was young,” Bell explained in a press release last month.

“It is my hope that this program will provide every athlete and coach in the territory with the opportunity to have that same experience.”

Hall added Keno City is “the coolest place I’ve been on earth.”