London 2012: 100 Years Since Gold Medals Were Gold
Nearly 9 tons of metal from Rio Tinto"s Kennecott mine in Utah and its Oyu Tolgoi mine in Mongolia were used for the 2012 Olympic gold, silver and bronze medals.
The 2012 Olympic Games medals are the heaviest and largest in history, the gold medal being 400 grams, or twice as heavy as its counterpart at Beijing back in Beijing. The London medals still remain below the record set by the Winter Games in Vancouver in 2010, where the medals weighed up to 576g.
However, gold medals are actually 92.5% silver and just 1.34% gold now.
"Olympic medals use a lot of metal but these days the gold medal is mostly silver. The silver medal is sterling silver while the bronze is largely copper. The last time the Olympic Games handed out solid gold medals was a hundred years ago at the 1912 Summer Games in Stockholm, Sweden" Mineweb writes.
Experts have pointed out that gold prices have risen from USD 300 an ounce a decade ago to around USD 1 600 now.
The silver medal is 92.5 percent silver, with the remainder copper, and the bronze medal is 97 percent copper, 2.5 percent zinc and 0.5 percent tin.
A total of 4 700 medals - gold, silver and bronze - will be awarded to Olympic and Paralympic athletes across 805 victory ceremonies.
The 2012 Olympic Games medals are the heaviest and largest in history, the gold medal being 400 grams, or twice as heavy as its counterpart at Beijing back in Beijing. The London medals still remain below the record set by the Winter Games in Vancouver in 2010, where the medals weighed up to 576g.
However, gold medals are actually 92.5% silver and just 1.34% gold now.
"Olympic medals use a lot of metal but these days the gold medal is mostly silver. The silver medal is sterling silver while the bronze is largely copper. The last time the Olympic Games handed out solid gold medals was a hundred years ago at the 1912 Summer Games in Stockholm, Sweden" Mineweb writes.
Experts have pointed out that gold prices have risen from USD 300 an ounce a decade ago to around USD 1 600 now.
The silver medal is 92.5 percent silver, with the remainder copper, and the bronze medal is 97 percent copper, 2.5 percent zinc and 0.5 percent tin.
A total of 4 700 medals - gold, silver and bronze - will be awarded to Olympic and Paralympic athletes across 805 victory ceremonies.
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