Why do Athletes (olympians) Bite their Medal
Now that the Rio Olympics is going on, we are seeing a huge number of athletes are winning medals. It is really great to watch the matches and the prize distribution ceremonies, but the one thing that we really do not get is, why do the athletes always chew on the medals that are given to them? It is actually a medal and not some chocolate wrapped in gold is it? Then what is the reason to chew it? But there are actually some reasons behind this. And in this article we are going to discuss about those reasons.
Firstly the photographers
The first reason is the photographers who really insist to click some pictures with the chewing poses of the medals by the athletes. This can be said to be an obsession for the photographers. Some people think that the photographers do this so that they can sell more copies and make it funny to read. And here come the historical reason.
The historical reason
The historical reason is more like a tradition that is being continued for quite a long time. In old times, it was a tradition to justify the authenticity of gold. By biting the gold, this was considered as a proof that the one that you possess is a real gold and was not actually a pyrite. Pyrite is a metal known as “Fools Gold”. The human teeth are harder than gold, but are softer than pyrite. And this is why the test was made that whether the material was gold or not.
The anatomy of olympic medals
While it is true that the gold medals won by Olympians is not actually complete gold. Every medal weighs 500 grams and the gold medals in Olympics comprise of 6 grams of gold and that too with 99.99% purity. And the rest material comprises of sterling silver. The silver medals have 500 grams of recycled silver with 92.5% purity. In the year 2010, there was a really funny incident when an Olympian broke one of his teeth to please an over eager photographer while shooting on this pose.
Well, a lot of people are of the opinion that winning athletes would be better served with proper checks and make sure that the checks never bounced. Along with gold medals, the Olympic winners also got $25000 as prize money.
| SL NO | History of Olympic medals | Brief details |
| 1. | The origin of chewing Olympic medals | In the initial games, original medals were not given out and instead, there were olive wreathes that were called Kotinos. These were available near the temple of Zeus at Olympia. There was no prize money too. Initially the Olympic sports were just for honor. And since the medals were made of such materials initially, to make sure whether the medals were of actual gold, this testing was done, which became a tradition. |
| 2. | The first Olympic gold medal | Created in 1928 on a competition initiated by International Olympic Committee for sculptors for creating the design of gold medal. |
| 3. | Change in designs | In 1972, there was a change in the design of the Olympic medals that was initially created. And it was the German Olympic Committee, who proposed a change in the medals reverse side. |
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