Eiffel Tower metal in Paris Olympics and Paralympics medals: Organisers reveal fascinating details
The oraganisers of the Paris Olympics and Paralympics unveiled the medals for the first time on Thursday, February 8, revealing that the medal winners.
In the Games will take home a piece of the iconic Eiffel Tower. The medal, as seen in the video shared by the Paris Olympics organisers, have a hexagon-shaped part which is made of fragments from the Eiffel Tower.
A total of 5084 medals have been manufactured for the biggest sporting spectacle of the year. The medals, which have 18-gram hexagon tokens, are made of iron taken from the Eiffel tower during refurbishments of the monument in the past and stored in a warehouse whose location is secret, according to Reuters news agency. The medals have been designed by jeweller Chaumet.
The Olympic Games will be held from July 26 to August 11 while the Paralympics will be held from August 28 to September 8.
WHY EIFFEL TOWER METAL IN PARIS MEDALS?
The Paris 2024 Athletes’ Commission chaired by Martin Fourcade led a team to ideate the medals for the Olympic Games. “It was an obvious choice: to associate the iconic monument of France and Paris, the Eiffel Tower, with the most prestigious object of the Games, the medal,” a statement said.
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.
WHAT IS THERE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF MEDAL?
The other side of the Olympic medal tells the story of the rebirth of the Games in Greece. A traditional feature of the medals since 2004, the goddess of victory Athena Nike is represented in the foreground, emerging from the Panathenaic Stadium that witnessed the revival of the Olympic Games in 1896.
Another compulsory feature of the other side of the Olympic medals, the Acropolis is joined by the Eiffel Tower for the first time in this design. In this way, the inspiration of the ancient Games in Greece, the French origins of the modern Olympic Games, and their next edition in Paris are all represented.
Even the ribbons for the Olympic and Paralympic medals have an Eiffel Tower connection. as they will be adorned with the Eiffel Tower lattice work.