PARIS.- Athletes who win medals at the 2024 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Paris will not just win gold, silver or bronze. Your medals will also include a piece of iron, wrought iron, to be exact, from the Eiffel Tower.
The organizers of the Games announced that Each of the 5,084 medals created for the Paris tests will be decorated on one of its sides with a hexagon-shaped piece of iron recovered from the emblematic monument of the French capital.
“This exceptional object had to meet another very strong symbol of our country and our capital,” said Tony Estanguet, president of the Paris 2024 organizing committee, at an event to unveil the design of the medals in Saint-Denis, a suburb next to north of Paris where several Olympic events will be held.
Estanguet explained that the iron used in the medals will be recycled fragments from the original construction of the Eiffel Tower in 1889which had remained unused in a warehouse after renovation works.
Stripped of their brown paint and polished, each fragment will weigh 18 grams, or just over half an ounce, and will be molded into a hexagon, the shape of France.
The hexagons, with the inscription “Paris 2024″ and the Games logo, will be set on the medal with claws in the shape of rivets from the Eiffel Tower, using a technique similar to that used to set precious stones in jewelry. The hexagons are surrounded by radiating lines designed to reflect light, a nod to Paris’s nickname as the City of Light.
“We wanted this medal to be beautiful, we wanted it to be symbolic, and what is more symbolic than bringing home a piece of France’s heritage,” Martin Fourcade, five-time Olympic champion and president of the Paris Athletes Commission, said at the presentation. 2024.
“It makes me feel proud to be French,” said Beatrice Hess, former French swimmer with 20 Paralympic titles. “She is a gem.”
The designs on the other side of the Olympic medals – which are made from recycled metal and must follow precise specifications imposed by the International Olympic Committee – will vary. They will include traditional symbols of the Games – such as Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, as well as the Acropolis of Athens – along with an engraving of the Eiffel Tower.
The medals of the Paralympic Games will be different, with a low-angle view of the Eiffel Tower and the words “Paris” and “2024” written in Braille, the writing system for the visually impaired that owes its name to the Frenchman Louis Braille. Those medals will also have notches on the edges: one for gold, two for silver and three for bronze.
Olympic organizers have long had the option of nodding to the culture of their nations in the design of their medals; At the 2008 Beijing Games, the medals were inlaid with a jade disc. However, The announcement by Paris Games organizers appears to be the first time a city has used fragments of a real monument.
The medals are being manufactured by the Monnaie de Paris – the official mint of Paris – and were designed by Chaumet, a 244-year-old Parisian jewelry company owned by LVMH, the French luxury conglomerate owned by Bernard Arnault. . LVMH is one of the largest sponsors of the Games, with financing of more than $150 million.
Antoine Arnault, one of Arnault’s sons and head of communications and image at LVMH, said at Thursday’s presentation that “it was a real challenge to work with a piece of the Iron Lady.” “It is not just a medal that we present today,” he added. “It is a work of art”.
The Eiffel Tower is perhaps the most recognized monument in France, with about 7 million visitors a year. Several events of the Paris Games will be held in a provisional stadium installed in the Champs de Mars, the park that leads to the tower.
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