Explainer: How valuable are the 2024 Olympic Games medals?
Kenya's Margaret Chelimo leads contestants in women's 10,000m final race at Stade de France, Saint-Denis, on August 9, 2024, during the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
What you need to know:
- Women athletes have brought a whole new dimension in sports. They come out of the tunnel as if directly from a beauty salon, fresh-faced, some with different wigs, hairstyle and elaborate nails.
- American beauty products companies are using the games to piggy-back on the Olympics.
- Competitors, chiefly in gymnastics and athletics, are making nails a big part of their look.
What is the value of the gold medal being awarded to top finishers at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris?
All the medals have a diameter of 85 millimetres and a thickness of 9.2 millimetres, and each weighs between 455 and 529 grams. The gold medal is made with six grams of gold plating, and silver accounts for the remainder of the total weight.
Silver medal weighs 529 grams, and is made with 525 grams of silver. Bronze medal is an alloy of copper, tin and zinc, and weighs 455 grams. Bronze medal is also the cheapest and heaviest medal.
Oxford Economics estimates the value of a gold medal at $1,027 (Sh133,510) , while silver and bronze medals are worth $535 (Sh69,550) and $4 (Sh598), respectively, excluding the value of the Eiffel Tower iron.
Organisers stopped awarding the pure gold medal for first position after the 1912 Olympic Games due to cost factors. The original 1912 gold medal was made of pure gold which would be valued at about $41,161.50 (Sh5.35 million) today, according to Forbes Magazine.
Each medal is adorned with what Paris Olympics organisers described as a “highly symbolic and priceless piece of metal”: the original iron from the Eiffel Tower, the giant iron structure national symbol of France.
The metal is cut into a hexagon shape embossed with a flame in the middle above “Paris 2024” and the Olympic rings.
The other side of the medal depicts the revival of the Games in Greece with Nike, the goddess of victory, in the foreground emerging from the Panathenaic Stadium, where the Olympics were brought back in 1896.
The Acropolis is featured in the background along with the Eiffel Tower.
“With precious and industrial metals markets so buoyant, however, winning an Olympic medal this year should yield considerable investment value, besides the eternal glory associated with securing a podium spot,” according to Oxford Economics.
The economic advisory firm also estimates that by the next Summer Games, Olympic medals will be worth considerably more. By 2028, during the Los Angeles Olympics, the gold medals will have increased to $1,136, (Sh147,680) while silver medals will be $579 (Sh75,270) and bronze medals $5.20 (Sh676).
By the 2032 Brisbane Olympics, the medals will be worth $1,612 (Sh209,560), $608 (Sh79,040) and $6 (Sh780, respectively, “so winning athletes this year should secure a real deal!”
Women athletes have brought a whole new dimension in sports. They come out of the tunnel as if directly from a beauty salon, fresh-faced, some with different wigs, hairstyle and elaborate nails. American beauty products companies are using the games to piggy-back on the Olympics.
Competitors, chiefly in gymnastics and athletics, are making nails a big part of their look.
