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.
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.
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