Showing posts with label Olympic Committee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Olympic Committee. Show all posts

Aug 8, 2012

Olympic Award Facts

For this year’s London Games, the gold medals are roughly 93% silver, 6% copper and 1% gold. The silver medals are 92% silver and 8% copper. The bronze medals are 97% copper, 2.5% zinc and 0.5% tin.

Gold medals made from solid gold were introduced at the 1904 St. Louis Games, and four years later in London, the medals began to be awarded to the top three placing athletes in the gold-silver-bronze order we’re familiar with today. The 1912 Stockholm Games were the last time solid gold medals were awarded.

These days, the IOC charter only requires that the first place medals be silver gilt, containing “silver of at least 925-1000 grade and gilded with at least 6g of pure gold.” The second place silver medals must contain silver of a similar grade. Beyond that, the specific composition of the medals, and their design, is largely left to the host city’s organizing committee.

When the first modern Olympic games organized by the International Olympic Committee were held in 1896 in Athens, winners got a silver medal and an olive branch, and runners-up received a bronze medal and a laurel branch.

Ancient Greek competitors were given an olive branch from a wild olive tree that grew at Olympia along with some money upon returning home.