What are Olympic Medals Actually Made Of?

What are Olympic Medals Actually Made Of?

However, pure gold Olympic medals were last awarded in the 1912 Olympic Games. Since then, the composition of elements making up Olympic medals has evolved. So, what are Olympic medals made of? We will tell you about that shortly so read on

 

Composition of Olympic Medals

Not all Olympic medals are composed of the elements they are named after. Gold and Silver medals are mainly encompassed of silver while bronze is made up of actual bronze.

However, for Gold and Silver, the composition percentage of the Silver element may vary with each Olympic event.

 

Who Decides What Percentage Is Included in the Olympic Gold Medals?

An Organizing Committee comprising of members from the host city determines the percentage composition of Silver in Olympic medals. However, certain conditions guide the designing of Olympic medals.

  1. All medals for both Silver and Gold should have silver percentage composition of not less than 92.5%.
  2. Six or more grams of pure gold should be used to plate Olympic Gold medals.
  3. The thickness of the medals shouldn't be less than 3 mm while the diameter should be 60 mm or more.

For these reasons, the composition of Gold and silver elements in Olympic medals has not been consistent over the years. For instance, the winners at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics were awarded Olympic Gold medals that were 20% heavier than the Gold medals awarded at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

 

Why Silver?

Before silver was chosen as the primary elements in Silver and Gold awards, winners used to be awarded Olive leaves. But that was before the contemporary Olympics.

In the 1896 Athens Olympics (the first modern Olympics), the top performers were awarded Silver rather than Gold while the runners up were awarded, Copper.

Why? The reason being that back in the days, Silver was coveted more than Gold.

This, however, changed in the 1908 Olympics where the top performers were awarded using the criteria that is famously used today – Gold, Silver, and Bronze. What changed? Gold became more coveted than Silver.

But why then are Olympic Gold medals not made up of pure Gold? Well, real Gold is much more expensive compared to Silver. Currently, one gram of Gold trades at an average price of $45.00 and  Silver was valued at $0.50. This clearly shows that awarding pure Gold medals would cost a fortune.

In 1912, when real Gold was awarded in the Stockholm Olympic, Gold traded at $0.61 per gram, and the Olympic medal weighed 24 grams. Roughly, each gold medal valued at $14.58, which is relatively cheaper compared to the current market value.

 

Silver and Gold

Olympic medals are not entirely composed of the elements that are named after. Gold medals are composed of minimal of 92.5% in silver. Six grams of genuine gold is used to plate the medals.

Visit our Medals tab to find out more about the various types of medals.