discover the medals of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, set with a piece of the Eiffel Tower

The Paris 2024 teams revealed on Thursday the medals that the athletes will receive at the Olympic and Paralympic Games. The athletes who reach the podium will take home a piece of the Eiffel Tower.

There will not only be gold, silver and bronze on the podiums of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris this summer. Athletes who win a medal will also leave – whatever the color of the metal – with 18 grams of puddled iron, used in the construction of the Eiffel Tower. In total, the precious object, unveiled Thursday February 8, with a hexagon in its center, is 85 millimeters in diameter, 9.2 millimeters thick, with a weight ranging from 529 grams for gold to 455 grams for the bronze.

This is THE particularity of the Olympic and Paralympic medals: the Paris 2024 teams wanted to integrate a piece of the Eiffel Tower into each of the awards. “The Eiffel Tower operating company allowed us to access the stock of puddled iron, in order to use the pieces of the original Eiffel Tower, which are removed when it is renovated. These pieces are preserved and we was able to collect some to create more than 5 000 medals”, revealed Joachim Roncin, design director of Paris 2024, during a preview presentation at Place Vendôme on January 31. In total, 91.512 kg were collected for the making of the Holy Grail of all athletes.

This result is the result of tripartite reflection by the creative teams of Paris 2024, the jewelry house Chaumet and the Athletes’ Commission. Martin Fourcade, president of this Commission, details his demands : “This medal is very symbolic, but it goes well beyond that. It had to be beautiful, attractive, because it is the only material element that an athlete keeps from the Games. Leaving the Games with a medal also means having a piece of history at home. With this, athletes will bring back a piece of the Eiffel Tower to their country.”

“We treated this medal like a jewel”

Once the requirements of Paris 2024 were recorded, Chaumet began the creative work. “We treated this medal like a jewelsays Clémentine Massonnat-Schaller, head of high jewelry creation at Chaumet. The piece of Eiffel Tower has a hexagonal shape because it is a symbol for France. We placed it in the center of the medal, adding light work all around. This represents the influence of France, of sporting performances, of creativity.”

“We know that all eyes will be on the medal this yearcontinues Benoît Verhulle, workshop manager at Chaumet. To have these effects of light, we opted for irregular faceting, slightly in relief. We paid a lot of attention to this influence, because the medal had to symbolize France, but also Paris, the city of lights. It must also highlight the athlete, the object had to be commensurate with his effort. It had to shine ! »

This puddled iron hexagon is not the only originality of these medals, created by Chaumet and engraved on the edge with the name of each discipline. If the reverse of the Paralympic medal will represent the Eiffel Tower seen from below, with “Paris 2024” written in Braille, it will be decorated with the goddess of victory Athena Nike in front of the Panathenaic Stadium, and the Parthenon on the Olympic awards. An unchanging decor since 2004 on this “face CIO”to which Paris 2024 had the right to add… the Eiffel Tower, the real star of the project.

It is also found on the ribbon, manufactured by the Neyret house and decorated with the crosspieces of the Parisian monument. It will be blue for the Olympic medals, red for the Paralympics, and directly integrated into the medal.

Undistributed medals will be destroyed

In total, 5 084 medals are being produced by the Monnaie de Paris. They are all made from recycled material : the gold and silver have already been used and are reused in the manufacture of the reward. The bronze comes from scraps of medals recovered by the Paris Mint over the past year.

Not all of these medals will be distributed during the Olympic and Paralympic Games, but Paris 2024 is obliged to plan widely. For example, in a swimming relay, between four and eight different swimmers can take part in the competition (qualification and final). It is therefore necessary to make eight medals of each metal, just in case, even if it means ultimately distributing only four. But don’t expect to get one back at the end of the competition, it’s impossible.

Some go back to the IOC and the International Paralympic Committee in the event of future reattribution – discoveries of doping cases a posteriori, notably – others in the Olympic museums. If any remain, the medals will simply be destroyed and remelted. They must belong to athletes, and only athletes. “The big challenge is that the athlete who wins the medal has as much emotion when receiving it as we do when drawing it.”, summarizes Clémentine Massonnat-Schaller. Response in less than six months.