The medals for the podium finishers at this summer’s Olympic Games will be unique; each will contain a piece of the original iron from the Eiffel Tower itself; “We realised that there’s one symbol known across the world,” said Joachim Roncin of the Paris Games organising committee
Last Updated: 08/02/24 11:48am
The Paris 2024 Olympic medals have been unveiled
The design for the medals for this summer’s Olympic Games in Paris has been revealed.
Each medal will contain a piece of original iron from the Eiffel Tower in the centre of it.
During the 20th century, the structure of the Eiffel Tower underwent renovation work. Certain metallic elements were removed from the iconic Paris landmark and have been preserved since then.
The athletes at the Olympics this summer will get a memento of Paris
Now chunks of that metal will be incorporated into the medals that will be awarded at Paris 2024.
Joachim Roncin, head of design at the Paris Games organising committee, said: “The concept came after a few discussions. We realised that there’s one symbol known across the world, which is the Eiffel Tower.
“We said to ourselves: ‘Hey, what if we approached the Eiffel Tower Operating Co to see if it’s possible to get a bit of the Eiffel Tower to integrate into the medal?'”
The company agreed, and “the dream became reality,” he said. “It’s really a bit of metal from the Eiffel Tower.”
Jean-Francois Martins, president of the Societe d’Exploitation de la tour Eiffel said: “The Eiffel Tower, the daughter of Paris and site of major world events, had to be used to provide athletes with an unforgettable souvenir of Paris.
The Eiffel Tower has become part of the medals themselves
“With this unique metal from the Eiffel Tower, this medal has a historic character and is a nod to Pierre de Coubertin [the founder of the modern Olympics] who, as a contemporary of Gustave Eiffel, was one of the last people to be able to visit the construction site of the Tower before it was opened.”
The medals were designed by Chaumet, the first jewellers to be involved in creating Olympic medals, and they will be manufactured at the Hotel de la Monnaie (the French Mint) which also made the medals for the 1924 Olympics.
The back of the medals features the Greek goddess of victory, Nike, charging forward, with the Acropolis to one side and the Eiffel Tower to the other.
Paralympics medals feature a view of the Eiffel Tower from underneath, and are stamped with Paris 2024 in braille homage to the Frenchman who invented it.
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