Medals for Paris Games embedded with piece of Eiffel Tower
• An Olympic medal inlaid with a piece of the Eiffel Tower. How’s that for a monumental prize?
A hexagonal, polished chunk of iron taken from the iconic landmark is being embedded in each gold, silver and bronze medal that will be hung around athletes’ necks at the July 26-Aug. 11 Paris Games and Paralympics that follow.
Games organizers revealed their revolutionary design on Thursday.
By making history at the Games, Paris medallists will take a bit of France and its history home, too.
The 330-metre tall Eiffel Tower is made of 18,038 iron parts. The iron pieces embedded in the centre of the Olympic medals each weigh 18 grams.
They were cut from girders and other bits that were swapped out of the Eiffel Tower during renovations and stored for safekeeping, according to Joachim Roncin, head of design at the Paris Games organizing committee. They were stripped of paint, polished and varnished for their second life.
They are stamped with “Paris 2024” and the Games logo — which looks like a flame or the face of someone with a chic bob haircut. The five Olympic rings are also stamped on the iron of the Olympic medals. The Paralympic logo of three swooshes, known as the Agitos, is stamped on the medals for the Aug. 28-Sept. 8 Paralympics.
The iron pieces’ hexagonal form represents France. The French sometimes refer to their country as “L’hexagone” — the hexagon — because of its shape.
The Paris Mint is manufacturing 5,084 medals — about 2,600 for the Olympics and 2,400 for the Paralympics. That is likely more than will be required. Some will be stored in case medals need to be reassigned after the Games, which can happen when medal winners are subsequently stripped of the prizes for doping. Some go to museums. Any other spares could be destroyed.
The gold medals weigh 529 grams and are not pure gold. They are made of silver and plated with six grams of gold.
The silvers weigh 525 grams.
The bronzes weigh 455 grams and are a copper, tin and zinc alloy.
The medals are 85 millimetres across and 9.2 millimetres thick.