The medals for the forthcoming Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games have been announced, and they have a distinctive twist.
To commemorate the Paris Games, all medals will be adorned with fragments of the Eiffel Tower.
The Olympic Games will take place between July 26 and August 11, while the Paralympic Games will be held between August 28 and September 8.
Every medal will include an 18-gram hexagonal chunk of iron from the Tower in the center.
The pieces were removed during 20th-century restorations and are now marked with the Olympic emblem for the games.
“By placing fragments of the Eiffel Tower at the center of its medals, Paris 2024 hopes to leave athletes with an unforgettable memory of the Games, of Paris and of France,” a statement from the Paris 2024 team said.
“For the Olympic and Paralympic Games Paris 2024, the Société d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel is giving these veritable pieces of the history of Paris and France a second lease of life.”
The medals themselves are around 8cm in diameter and weigh around 500 kilos. Over 5000 medals will be awarded at the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The hexagonal shape in the middle represents both France as a whole and the Tower, which will play an important part in the games.
The jewelers also devised the notion of tracing rays all around the hexagon. This uneven faceting draws light and produces a type of glow.
“The light catches this facetwork, causing a lot of movement. Paris is the City of Lights. “The object had to radiate and reflect the athlete’s efforts,” says Benoît Verhulle, leader of the Chaumet studio that created the medals.
