Paris Olympics 2024: Medals made from part of Eiffel Tower
February 10, 2024
We’ve had Olympic medals made of recycled electronics before - but never from parts of the Eiffel Tower!
Medals for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris will feature scrap metal from the Tower taken during refurbishments and repairs.
The metal leftovers had been stored for years in a warehouse in a secret ORFDWLRQ EXW DUH QRZ ÀQDOO\ JHWWLQJ D new purpose.
Thierry Reboul, creative director of Paris 2024, said: “It’s the opportunity for the athletes to bring back a piece of Paris with them. The absolute symbol of Paris and France is the Eiffel Tower.”
$ )UHQFK OX[XU\ MHZHOOHU\ ÀUP EDVHG in Paris designed the medals and 5,084 of them will be produced by France’s mint, the Monnaie de Paris.
The scrap medal will make up the centre pieces of the gold, silver and bronze medals, with hexagon-shaped piece forged out of the scrap iron.
Hexagons are said to represent
France, with the country sometime referred to as as “L’Hexagone” because of its shape.
Six small clasps that hold the iron pieces in the medals are a nod at the 2.5 million rivets that bind the Eiffel Tower together.
The back of the Olympic medals features the Greek goddess of victory, Nike, charging forward, with the famous Acropolis on one side of her and the Eiffel Tower to the other.
The Paris Olympics will run from 24 July to 11 August with the Paralympics held between 28 August and 8 September.
Medals for the Paralympics feature a view of the Eiffel Tower from underneath, and are stamped with Paris 2024 in braille, in tribute to Frenchman
Louis Braille, who invented the reading and writing system for visually impaired people.