Olympic medals are the ultimate prize for Team GB stars this summer - and Paris 2024 offers them something even greater. That's because athletes won't just win gold, silver or bronze, they will also own a piece of France's most iconic landmark, the Eiffel Tower. Organisers of the Games revealed that each of the 5,084 medals set to be dished out will include metal from the 1,083 ft structure itself.
Scraps of wrought iron from the Eiffel Tower’s original 1889 construction have been recycled as Olympic decoration. The fragments, taken during refurbishments and repairs of La Dame de Fer ('The Iron Lady') had been stored for years in a warehouse. 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." Chaumet, a luxury Parisian jewellery firm, designed every Olympic and Paralympic medal with Eiffel Tower metal as the centre-piece. The repurposed iron has been crafted into a hexagon shape, with the six-sided polygon often referred to as a symbol of France.
In fact, one of the country's many nicknames is 'L'Hexagone' because of how it looks on a map. While designs change every four years, the medals all must be at least 60 mm across They also must be at least 3 mm thick Gold medals must contain at least 6 grams of gold Silver medals must be at least 92.5 percent silver Clementine Massonnat, creative director of Chaumet, said: “We’ve decided to add this hexagon in the way we would a gemstone - in the centre and placed as the most precious element of the medal.
” Each fragment of the Eiffel Tower metal has been stripped of its brown paint and polished before being moulded into Hexagons. The iron pieces all weigh 18 grams and six small clasps will hold it in the medals shaped like the 2.5 million rivets that bind the landmark.
The designs on the back of the Olympic medals feature various traditional symbols of the Games. These include the Greek goddess of victory, Nike, as well as the Athens Acropolis — along with an engraving of the Eiffel Tower. Its design is also a nod to the tower's namesake engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built it over a century ago.
Frenchman Eiffel gifted his daughter a pearl necklace from Chaumet for her wedding, with the jewellers now designers behind the medals..
