There will be 5,084 medals handed out during the 2024 Paris Olympic Games this summer. Each of them will include a hexagonal piece of iron taken from the Eiffel Tower. The iron was taken out during renovations to the iconic tower.
Organizers announced the addition on Thursday when they revealed the design. It was created by Chaumet. The iron work is known as “puddled” made in the forges and blast furnaces of Pompey in Lorraine, in eastern France.
The gold, silver and bronze medals will have a six-sided metal medallion inset into each medal. On the front, an iron hexagon from the Eiffel Tower bears the Paris Olympic logo. On the right, the engraved figures of the goddess of victory Athena Nike, the Panathenaic stadium and the Acropolis are imposed by the International Olympic Committee. The committee had to be granted exceptional authorization to add the design of the Eiffel Tower.
“We wanted to offer a piece of the 1889 Eiffel Tower to all the medallists of the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games,” said the head of the local organizing committee, Tony Estanguet, in a media release.
[The medals] “combine our most precious metals — gold, silver and bronze — in this treasure that is the Eiffel Tower.”
