After evidence of medals from the Paris 2024 Olympic Games already showing signs of deterioration, the French Mint told the Associated Press this week that a number of the prizes will be replaced.
The French Mint produced 5,084 medals for the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games and the organization is not disclosing how many are set to be replaced.
“The Monnaie de Paris has taken the issue of damaged medals very seriously since the first exchange requests in August, and has mobilized its internal teams,” the French mint said. (Scripps News)
“Since then, the company has modified and optimized its relative varnishing process. The Monnaie de Paris will replace all damaged medals at the athletes’ request during the first quarter of 2025.”
The medals are made of iron and weigh approximately 18 grams each. They were designed by the Chaumet House of Jewellery, a luxury jewelry and watch brand which is headquartered in Paris. The backs of both the Olympic and Paralympic designs are the same, each featured with a hexagon-shaped piece of iron.
This iron comes directly from the Eiffel Tower and was able to be collected during renovations over the last century as the pieces have been preserved and since donated to the Paris Olympic Committee. Every year, the Eiffel Tower undergoes renovation and maintenance work which closes the upper part of the tower.
Some athletes took to social media to display the state of their medals, including American skateboarder Nyjah Huston and French relay swimmers Yohann Ndoye-Brouard and Clement Socchi.
Huston originally posted about his medal just weeks after the Games, in August 2024.
You can see pictures of the less-than-shiny medals here.
They’re rusting because of Woke
But they are environmentally friendly…
Considering the huge sums of money nations spend on hosting the Olympics in my opinion the medals for the athletes should be solid gold (min. 18K-22K), pure silver (0.999) and bronze. The cost is a fraction of the total cost of the game!!! Why do they cut corners on the athletes with their hard earned medals??? The athletes make the Olympic Games and they should be provided with a medal that warrants their years of dedication and grind to make the podium!!!
p.s Omega should give them all killer Omega Seamasters as well!!!
If you’re an athlete, would you rather they add $90 million in cost of the medals, or $90 million in prize money?
The Olympics are an ugly financial proposition. I don’t think anyone is looking for ways to add tens of millions of dollars. The value of an Olympic medal isn’t really in its metal content anyway, it’s in the symbolic value. Making them with $50,000 of metal versus $500 of metal doesn’t change their value because nobody is melting them down.
I beg to differ. First there is no prize money although I believe there should be. Yes they hold sentimental value however if an athlete should choose to sell (many Olympians are just regular people which may look to liquidate personal assets) or let’s say auction off for charity it has an exponentially greater value. Gold is a valuable asset which always appreciates over the long term especially something such as an Olympic medal which is living history. In my opinion $10M is nothing in comparison to the billions it costs to host a games.
Just a quick follow-up and these numbers will I’m sure be off slightly but having a degree in gemology and as a master diamond grader I am somewhat familiar with luxury items and jewelry. A quick search indicated there were a total of 339 events at the 2021 Summer Olympics.
As per my search the average weight of a medal is 19oz (alloyed metal weight). In regular standard metals 28.35 grams is one ounce however an ounce of gold is measured in troy ounces which equates to 31.1035 grams. 19 oz alloyed metal 19oz = 17.31774oz gold troy oz. The current price of gold is $2713.10 USD per Troy oz, 17.31774 x 2713.10 = $46,984.74 USD gold value. $46,984.74… Read more »
Except that your math is for 339 events when the first sentence says they produced 5084 medals, of which we can assume a third are gold, so roughly 1700. Your cost needs to be multiplied by 5.
Well that’s certainly a lot of extra medals to produce for such a drastically lower number of events. Maybe the VIPs all get some as well??? lol
you need to consider the team events where each get a medal and relays as well, which probably gets you closer to that number of 1700ish.
The number 340 figure I’m referencing is based off the total gold medals awarded for Paris 2024 Summer Olympics . Even if you add relays for numbers sake it would not amount to such an overly exaggerated figure. However this is based solely off the Summer Olympics and does not include the separate Paralympics. Those games would have significantly higher percentages due to all of the para classifications for their respective events.
I came across this data for reference which has Paris 2024 total gold medals awarded at 340….
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1255924/gold-medals-summer-olympics/
Point taken on where to focus spending.
But would it really add $90 million to the cost to make the medals last?
Agreed it’s not about the value of the medal, but I would hope that the medal will look almost as good 20-40-60 years later or for the medalists next gen. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
It’s certainly unacceptable for medals to show deterioration within days or months.
Pretty shocking how they didn’t test for decay/rust etc far in advance
Or maybe they did but the test medals were constructed differently
Pretty amazing how poorly they aged. French are all about fashion so that’s quite the oversight
Pas cher pas cher…translation
Cheap cheap