A historic final day of swimming in Tokyo
Olympians taking part in Tokyo 2020 are competing for a chance to write a page in the history books — and hopefully bring home a medal.
If you do win a medal — be it gold, silver or bronze — they’re pretty much priceless.
Former British heptathlete Kelly Sotherton, who won a bronze in heptathlon at Athens 2004 and another for the 4 x 400-meter relay at Beijing 2008, told CNN Sport that her medals are a reminder of how her hard work and effort paid off.
“I would never sell my medals,” Sotherton told CNN Sport on Friday. “They mean a lot.”
Sotherton said she keeps her medals accessible rather than putting them up in a frame.
“I think it’s nice to sometimes put them on,” she added.
The design of the medals changes for each games, and this time around they are the work of Junichi Kawanishi.
Each of the gold, silver and bronze medals are 85 millimeters in diameter and range in thickness from 7.7 mm to 12.1 mm.
The gold medal is in fact made from gold-plated pure silver, with around 6 grams of gold out of a total weight of 556 grams.
The silver medal is made from pure silver and weighs around 550 grams, while the bronze medal weighs approximately 450 grams and is in fact made from 95% copper and 5% zinc.
At today’s prices that means the gold medal would be worth around $800 if you melted it down, while the silver would be worth about $450 and the bronze around $5.
Earlier this month a winner’s medal from the 1896 Athens Olympics sold for $180,000 at auction, Cuban shooter Leuris Pupo’s gold medal from the London 2012 Olympics fetched $73,200, and his compatriot Iván Pedroso’s long jump gold medal from Sydney 2000 went for $71,335. All three were sold by Boston-based RR Auction.
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