In the sports world, a reward for an Olympic medal does not exist. They are awarded to the best athletes in the world. To become an Olympic champion and receive the coveted award means to forever enter the history of sports. Given the extraordinary importance of medals, their manufacture and design has always been given special attention.
This type of sports award appeared in 1896 along with the revival of the Olympics. Their first owners were the champions and runner-up athletes at the games in Athens. Winners at that time were awarded with silver medals, diplomas and olive wreaths. Winners received copper awards, diplomas and laurel wreaths. The very first Olympics medals on the front side had the image of Zeus, in whose hand the globe was placed and the goddess Nick standing on it . And next to it the word "Olympia" is written in Greek. On the reverse side was the Acropolis and an inscription on the venue of the games. The weight of the awards was small - only 47 grams. They were minted at the Mint in Paris.
How rewards have changed
Throughout the history of the Olympic Games, the medals awarded to the winners were round (with the exception of 1900). The French wanted to surprise everyone not only with the high level of the competition, but also with awards. Champions were awarded medals of the Olympics in a rectangular shape. They were 53 grams in weight, 59 mm high and 41 mm wide. The front side had the image of the goddess Nika, and the reverse side was decorated with an athlete standing on a pedestal with a laurel wreath in his hand.
All subsequent Olympic champions were awarded only round medals. But their weight was constantly changing. The easiest were the medals of the Olympic Games of 1904 and 1908. Their weight was only 21 grams.
Since the London Games of 1908, in four competitions in a row, there is no image of the goddess Nicky at the awards. And only in 1928 in Amsterdam, the Greek symbol of victory was returned to the Olympic medals. Before the games in Sydney in 2000, the goddess Nika was portrayed as sitting, in one hand she holds a laurel wreath, and in the other - ears of grain. In 2004, the look of the awards became different. On them, the winged goddess is shown flying into the stadium and bringing victory to the most powerful athlete.
In 1924, Olympic rings first appeared at the awards. And starting with the games in Amsterdam in 1928, the Olympic medals for several decades acquired not only the same image created by the Florentine Giuseppe Cassioli, but also weighed 66 grams. They changed only inscriptions indicating the place and year of the event, as well as the numbers of the games. Such standard awards were used until the 1972 Olympics in Munich.
In all subsequent games, the medals differed only on the reverse side, the front part was given to the traditional image of the goddess Nika. At the Olympics in 2004 and 2008, winners and prize-winners were awarded new models of awards.
But the Olympics 2012 presented the most surprises to the awarded, the medals of which turned out to be the hardest in the history of games. They weighed 410 grams with a diameter of 8.5 centimeters and a thickness of 7 mm. This Olympics also had the most expensive medals. Their manufacture required eight tons of gold, copper and silver, which were specially delivered to London from Mongolia and the United States.