Podium finishers at the upcoming Paris Olympics will take home a piece of the Eiffel Tower as revealed by the event organisers on Thursday during the official unveiling of the event’s medals.
The 2024 Paris Olympics are slated for July 26-August 11with a total of 10,500 athletes from 206 NOCs (National Olympic Committees) set to compete.
The medals which are set with hexagon-shaped tokens will be forged out of scrap metal from France’s most iconic monument.
Creative director of the Paris 2024 Games, Thierry Reboul noted that the idea was to link the Games with symbols of France.
“The absolute symbol of Paris and France is the Eiffel Tower. It’s the opportunity for the athletes to bring back a piece of Paris with them,” Reboul said during the unveiling.
The medals which were re-designed by luxury jewelers Chaumet will weigh 18 grams whereas its hexagonal shape will represent the shape of France.
The iron used in the medals was taken from the tower during past refurbishments and then stored for years in a warehouse whose location remains secret.
The piece sits in the centre of the gold, silver and bronze medals, ringed with grooves evoking light rays bursting outward – drawn from a tiara design in Chaumet’s archives.
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 – a homage to the Frenchman who invented it (Louis Braille). The 5,084 medals are produced by France’s mint, the Monnaie.
