The 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic medals were presented this Thursday with the novelty that they incorporate hexagonal iron pieces extracted from the Eiffel Tower. Each of the 5,084 medals scheduled for the next Games will contain an 18-gram piece of iron from the Eiffel Tower, which was removed during renovation work in the 20th century. This incorporation of the Eiffel Tower into the medals is a symbolic gesture intended to leave athletes with an indelible memory of the Olympic Games, Paris and France.
While Chaumet jewelry played a critical role in the design, the medals also honor traditional symbols and elements. The reverse includes the image of Nike, the ancient Greek goddess of victory, along with depictions of the Panathinaiko Stadium and the Acropolis.
In addition, the Paralympic medals have features such as the inscription “Paris 2024″ written in Braille and notches on the edges to differentiate between gold, silver and bronze medals for people with visual disabilities.
The president of the organizing committee, Tony Estanguet, gave a press conference to present the medals and remarked that with this design they wanted to inspire the athletes: “Great efforts have been made to try to combine these precious metals - gold, silver and bronze - with the most precious metal of the Eiffel Tower, the jewel in the French crown. What’s characteristic of the 2024 medals is how they intertwine... that fusion, that alloy,” he said.
Without its usual ‘Eiffel Tower Brown’ paint, the polished iron has remained in its original color. Located in the center of the medal and embossed with the emblem of the Paris 2024 Games, this heritage piece coexists with gold, silver and bronze to give the medals a two-tone effect.
“The explosion of sunshine represents a brilliant sporting achievement, French pride in hosting the Games and Paris as the City of Lights,” said Benoît Verhulle, Head of Atelier de Chaumet. “When light hits the medals, they really come to life,” he was proud.
The Olympic and Paralympic medals are all engraved with the name of the sport, the discipline and the event on the edge. These inscriptions are in French on the Olympic medals and in English on the Paralympic medals. That is, in their corresponding official languages of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Paralympic Committee (ICC).
The Paris 2024 Olympic Medals in numbers:
- Weight: 529 g (gold), 525 g (silver) and 455 g (bronze)
- Diameter: 8.5 cm
- Depth: 9.2 cm
- Materials: gold-plated silver, solid silver and a solid bronze alloy, all sustainably sourced
- 18 g of Eiffel Tower iron in each medal
- Total number of medals produced: 5,084
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