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【Foreword】
The Olympics are in full swing and we have already won 10 gold, 7 silver and 3 bronze medals.
Recently, there have been many claims on the Internet, saying that the production of medals in this Paris Olympics is very sloppy, the gold content is very low, and there are a lot of "scrap iron" from the Eiffel Tower.
According to approximate calculations, the value of a gold medal in the Paris Olympics is only more than 6,000 yuan, and the silver and bronze medals are naturally cheaper.
Why is the gold content of the gold medal in the Olympic Games so low? When did the most expensive gold medal in history appear?
Olympic gold medal
The Olympic Games have a history of more than 100 years, but it is not since the ancient Olympic Games that gold, silver and bronze medals have been awarded to winning athletes.
There was no such thing as awarding medals in the Olympic Games in history, and the highest honor for athletes at that time was to wear an olive branch on their heads.
Some netizens may remember that when we held the Olympic Games, in addition to the flowers and medals on the hands of the award-winning athletes, there were also olive branches on their heads.
Whether in the history of China or Western countries, the meaning expressed by the olive branch is very profound, and it can be said that it is very appropriate to use the olive branch to symbolize the Olympic spirit.
The first time in Olympic history a medal was awarded to a winning athlete was in 1896, when the first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens, Greece.
At that time, there were no gold medals, and the medals for the champion and runner-up were silver and bronze respectively, while the third place would not receive a medal.
The main reason was that Greece at that time believed that only gamblers would be associated with gold, so gold would not appear in Olympic medals.
In 1900, when Paris hosted the Olympic Games, there were three kinds of medals, gold, silver and bronze, which were awarded to the champions, runners-up and third runners-up.
After the gold medal, which Olympics will the most expensive gold medal appear?
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The first gold medal was won at the Paris Olympics, and this year, the host country of the Olympics is back in Paris.
The organizers of the Paris Olympics asked jewelers to design Olympic medals for them, but the difference is that the gold medal is inlaid with a hexagonal iron block, which is said to weigh 18 grams, from the wreckage of the Eiffel Tower.
In addition to this piece of scrap iron, there are 6 grams of gold and 505 grams of silver, and the total cost of these materials is 863 euros, which is about 6,700 yuan.
Japan's medals are more famous, and during the Tokyo Olympics, some athletes said on their social media that the gold medals won at the Olympics had lost their skin.
More than one athlete has discovered this problem, and the medals of the Tokyo Olympics are made from various metal scraps collected from all over the country.
Japan's gold medal, the gold content is also 6 grams, the silver content is 50 grams, the production cost and the Paris Olympics gold medal production cost is not too big, a gold medal is about 800 US dollars, at that time equivalent to RMB, about 5200 yuan.
At the 2008 Olympic Games, the medals were much more generous, and compared to the scrap iron in Paris and the garbage in Japan, our jade was both beautiful and expensive.
The medals in Paris are gold-clad iron, silver-clad iron, and copper-clad iron, but the medals in the Beijing Olympics are gold-inlaid jade, silver-inlaid jade, and copper-inlaid jade.
Our gold medal uses 6.59 grams of gold, 232 grams of silver and a piece of Kunlun jade, which symbolizes good fortune in gold and jade.
In these years, the gold and silver content of the medals is not much different, this is because the International Olympic Committee also has certain regulations on the materials of the medals, and it is not possible to use any raw materials you want.
The most expensive medal
In fact, in the history of the Olympic Games, there have been medals of pure gold, and that was in 1912, at the Stockholm Olympics, the champion would receive a medal weighing 24 grams of pure gold.
This was the first and only time in the history of the Olympic Games that a medal of pure gold was used, and later it was not used in subsequent Olympic Games because of the high cost of pure gold medals.
Pure gold medals are indeed rich, and the cost is much higher than international regulations, otherwise they would not have been used because of the price.
And the gold medal in Stockholm is not the most expensive Olympic gold medal, although it is pure gold, after all, it is only 24 grams.
If you want to talk about wealth, you have to look at Vancouver, which at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, they prepared a gold medal with a gold content of 17.3-20.3 ounces.
An ounce has exceeded 28 grams, and the gold medal of the Vancouver Winter Olympics has reached about 500 grams.
At that time, 500 grams of gold was estimated at about $30,000, and now, the value is probably even higher.
This also makes the Wenhua Winter Olympics the "most valuable" Olympic Games in history.
However, this is only the value of the Olympic medals themselves, but the real value behind the medals in the hands of the Olympic winners is far higher than the material value itself.
The materials used to make the gold medal can be measured in terms of the recent value, but the finished gold medal and its significance in the hands of the athletes' week cannot be measured by money.
There have been Olympic champions who were injured when they were athletes and could not continue to live after retirement, so they had to auction off the gold medals they won at the Olympics.
Chen Xiaomin, the weightlifting champion in the mainland, auctioned her gold medal at a sky-high price of 1.28 million yuan, and the gold medal of the legendary Owens in the United States track and field event was auctioned at an astonishing price of $1.46 million.
Olympic gold medals, some materials are expensive, some competitions and dreams are meaningful, this is the value of Olympic medals, and after winning the medal, there is also the "wealth effect" that athletes get.
Today's athletes, to a large extent, success in sports means fame, whether it is the state, local, government, or enterprise, Fenfen will give these athletes rich rewards.
These rewards, on the one hand, are to recognize their dedication and the glory they bring to the country, on the other hand, athletes can go on the national stage, no one is not injured, these rewards are also a guarantee for their future life.
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In fact, in the final analysis, the Olympic gold medal is the result of the hard work of the athletes day after day, and they are a symbol of their glory for the country.
Regardless of the material of the Olympic gold medal, the inheritance of its spirit and the weight of its persistence in the dream far exceed its material value.
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Resources
Xinmin Evening News reported on August 1, 2024 that "the price of metal has risen, and the value of Paris Olympic medals has increased significantly".
Beijing Business Daily published on July 30, 2024 "The Olympic gold medal is not pure gold!" Who has the most valuable medals from the Olympic Games? ".
On July 27, 2021, People's Information published "How much gold does an Olympic gold medal contain? Do you know how much an Olympic gold medal is worth? ".