By Joiner Martínez
Sep 28, 2024, 8:27 PM EDT
This summer’s Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games have been celebrated as one of the best sporting events in history. Some participants have complained about the quality of what everyone wants: the medals, specifically the bronze ones.
The Paris 2024 Organization Committee has assured that it will replace all medals that have been damaged or damaged in these weeks after the Olympics.
Álvaro Martín, Olympic walking champion in the mixed relay along with María Pérez, also took home a bronze medal in the 20 kilometers. “The bronze one is peeling and seems to be eating away the color. I have it stored in the box they gave us so that it wears out as little as possible with air or oxygen. I don’t know the reason. It doesn’t happen with the gold medal, that one is perfect,” the Extremaduran walker tells EFE, who “has not yet asked for a change of the bronze medal.”
The controversy began when some athletes began to show rapid deterioration of their newly hung bronzes. One of the first was skateboarder Nijah Houston.
On August 9, the American showed obvious wear and tear on the award, especially on the verso, where the goddess of Victory is engraved, although the front part, in which the famous piece of the Tower is embedded, was not unscathed either. Eiffel. “We have to improve the quality of the medals a little,” the skater lamented in his post on the networks.
The bronzes in question have a diameter of 85 millimeters, 9.2 mm thick and weigh 455 grams and are made of an alloy of copper, tin and zinc. “Medals are the most desired and precious objects for athletes. Those that are damaged will be systematically replaced by the Monnaie de Paris and minted as they were originally,” the Paris 2024 Committee clarified.
Neither this organization nor the Monnaie de Paris have disclosed, so far, how many medals have been exchanged. This last public institution, considered the oldest in France since it was founded more than 1,000 years ago (in the year 864) by Charles II, has been in charge of manufacturing the 5,084 gold, silver and bronze medals that have been awarded in the Olympic and Paralympic Games in the French capital.
A process that takes at least 30 stages and for which it has a ‘savoir-faire’ that few have. The house of la Monnaie, currently located in an imposing 18th century palace on the banks of the Seine River, already manufactured the prizes for the first edition of the modern Games, those of Athens in 1896.
He also signed those for the summer editions of 1900 and 1924 in Paris and the winter editions of 1968 in Grenoble. The medals in question raised great expectations among athletes due to their innovative design, which included a steel fragment of the Eiffel Tower in the medals to symbolize the greatness of France.
Continue reading:
Paris removes Olympic rings from the Eiffel Tower to replace them with lighter ones
Imane Khelif, boxer involved in controversy in Paris 2024, was never suspended by the WBO
They give a house to Ecuadorian Daniel Pintado for winning the gold medal at the Olympic Games. Paris 2024