100 days from the competition in France, the organizers unveiled new medals, from recycling. This is indeed a great first in France for an event of this scale.
“There, there is for 250 tons. And then they’ll go all night in the oven“. In the bowels of the Monnaie de Paris, the medals of the Rugby World Cup are being struck, engraved. But before arriving at this final stage and seeing the birth of the 1491 medalsit has been a long journey.
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It all started in 2022: partner of the organization, the Orange group organized a collection of used phones from amateur rugby clubs across France, partner companies as well as in its stores throughout France. It is from there that we could have extracted the precious metals, explains Julien Sabouret, head of collection at Monnaie de Paris. “There is a recycler that turns all this collection into metal shot. Then, a founder will make us the plates which are then used to strike the medals“, he explains.
full of symbols
Even the gilding of the medals is done thanks to the telephones since they contain very small quantities of gold. An ecological approach with, in all, 206,000 used laptops that will be used to design the medals. In the end, 2,953 kilos of metal were recovered from the 31 tonnes of telephones collected, i.e. 138 telephones to fashion a medal.
But what will they look like? “We made an oval-shaped room, of course. We see the cup, the logo of the competition, and then the bail, the part that receives the ribbon, which has a well stylized shape: that of the Arc de Triomphe“, decrypts Joachim Jimenez, engraver and creative director.
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Around the logo of the competition, the Möbius strip is drawn on the back, “a unique and infinite bond that will connect players to fans, rugby to society, France and the world“, specifies the organization in a press release, Wednesday, May 31.
And the meticulousness was pushed to the point of engraving on the Cup drawn on the medal, the names of the previous winners… before perhaps seeing appearing there (finally) that of France. The competition will take place in France from September 8 to October 28, with the opening match France against New Zealand. In total, the competition will be held in 9 host cities. Saint-Denis, but also Lille, Nantes, Bordeaux, Lyon, Saint-Etienne, Marseille, Nice and Toulouse.