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“The most expensive Olympic medals in the world”
Two researchers at Radio France Inter Collin, talk about the 2024 Olympic Games
The 2024 Olympics, the event that many nations aspire to one day host. Athletes are preparing to compete against their colleagues from other nations.
The dream for some that comes true and for others to beat their own record and meet new faces from the sports world and finally there are those who qualify this space as the real market of athletes not to be missed. But in all its passions, its stresses, its dreams, its emotions, its worries, its hidden fears, there are these medals, these 5084 medals that draw the destiny of the athletes, and which will be distributed to the best who are the podium are they really made of gold? In a program hosted by Radio France Inter Bruno Collin, historian specializing in currencies, brings surprising elements.
“Big pieces without ribbon”
During this broadcast, he explains “During the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896, the winners won a round silver medal, without a ribbon, designed by a French artist and struck by the Paris Mint. At that time, there were no gold medals. It was only during “the second games, the Paris Games in 1900, that gold medals appeared, rectangular this time and still without a ribbon” large coins without a ribbon continued to be distributed to the champions, it was not pretty. 1960 The Summer Games in Rome brought order to what the athletes expected “so that the medal was worn around the neck, either with a chain or with a ribbon, rules in the design and production of medals.
1928-2004 same design
It took several years for the International Organizing Committee (IOC) to impose the design on one side of the medal from 1928 to 2004, which remains the same for each Olympic Games. “Since the Athens Games in 2004, the IOC has left the choice of their design to the Organizing Committee of the Games (OCOG) of the country hosting them.” On the other hand, he will say that “the IOC imposes three simple rules: the shape, if possible circular for the Summer Games, a bail that allows a ribbon to be attached, finally a minimum diameter of 60 millimeters and a minimum thickness of 3 millimeters. For the Winter Games, on the other hand, there is no particular prescription.” The most expensive Olympic medals in the world What about these Paris Olympics and Paralympics?
It will take 5084
“The Olympic and Paralympic medals were recently unveiled, after months of design in the greatest secrecy, medals that may have a surprising destiny, believes the RFI journalist.” For Stéphane Gachet, author of books on Olympic sport. These medals were designed by a famous jeweler from Place Vendôme in Paris, manufactured by the Paris Mint: and 5,084 will be needed. “Medals that are not (completely) gold. “It’s even the opposite: for Tokyo, they weighed exactly 556 grams, of which only 6 grams were gold. In reality, the plating, the rest, he will say was pure silver,” explains Stéphane Gachet. “They are often alloys, but silver, on the other hand, is often pure, especially in recent years. Bronze is indeed an alloy, on the other hand.”
“The most expensive medals in the world”
For these 2024 Olympic Games, “the medals symbolically bear at their center, a piece of hexagonal iron from the Eiffel Tower. They were really gold, but only until 1912.” He will specify that “Since then, these so-called gold medals are in fact silver on which a gold film is placed. This is what we call vermeil. This year, given the very high price of precious metals, they will certainly be the most expensive Olympic medals in the world.”
A goddess of victory
“As for what we will see on these medals, there are mandatory elements. There is necessarily a goddess of victory, the Olympic emblem, the name of the discipline, obviously the name of the upper town. That is on the front, very often. And on the back, each Olympic committee can add some visual, aesthetic, cultural elements. Sometimes, that is what gives the touch of originality and what allows the official release of the medal to be scripted.” “Collective memory often forgets its champions.”
The 1900 medal was rectangular in shape.
The Olympic medal has not always had its current round shape. “At the 1900 Games, the second Summer Olympics in history, the medal was rectangular. And it had another peculiarity: it did not mention the Olympic terms, nor of course the rings, which had not been created at the time. And that had a rather astonishing consequence, which is that a certain number of medalists at these 1900 Olympic Games did not even know, as a result, that they had been medalists! Worse, being an Olympic medalist is rarely synonymous with glory in the long term,” he believes.
In summary
“Collective memory often forgets its champions. And the further back in time we go, the more frequent these situations are. There are even huge surprises, with records that do not correspond to reality! For example, I discovered an Olympic medallist who died a few weeks before he was supposedly a medallist,” he says.
Synthesis by H. Hichem