Medals for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris will feature metal taken from the Eiffel Tower.Organisers unveiled the medals which have hexagon-shaped tokens forged out of scrap iron from the monument embedded in them.
“It’s the opportunity for the athletes to bring back a piece of Paris with them,” said Thierry Reboul, creative director of Paris 2024, on Thursday.
“The absolute symbol of Paris and France is the Eiffel Tower.”
The central pieces of the gold, silver and bronze medals have been taken from iron girders and other parts of the Eiffel Tower replaced during refurbishments.
Scrap metal from the tower, named after Gustave Eiffel whose company designed and built the tower between 1887 and 1889, had been stored for years in a warehouse in a secret location.
A French luxury jewellery firm based in Paris designed the medals and 5,084 of them will be produced by France’s mint, the Monnaie de Paris.
The back of the Olympic medals features the Greek goddess of victory, Nike, charging forward, with the Acropolis to one side and the Eiffel Tower to the other.
Medals for the Paralympics feature a view of the Eiffel Tower from underneath and are stamped with Paris 2024 in braille – in homage to Frenchman Louis Braille, who invented the reading and writing system for visually impaired people.
The Paris Olympics will run from 24 July to 11 August with the Paralympics held between 28 August and 8 September.
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