Why do Olympians bite their medals?
HAVE you noticed the strange ritual that all athletes carry out when they’re going to collect their Olympic medals?
It’s always a big occasion watching Olympians binge rewarded for their hard work, however viewers have been left baffled over watching them bite their medals but there could be more than one reason for the pose.
Why do Olympic athletes bite on their medals?
Anyone who wants to prove whether or not an item is authentic gold simply needs to sink their teeth into it.
As the metal is naturally soft and malleable, you should be able to leave a dent if you chomp onto it. Despite this, medals from the past 50 years don’t actually contain a large quantity of gold.
The 2024 Paris Olympic medals may shock you when it comes to the quantity of gold in them.
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The gold medals consist of 523g of silver, coated in 6g of gold. Silver medals weigh 525g and are made of pure silver, while bronze medals weigh 455g and are made of copper, tin and zinc.
The Paris Olympic medals include an iron piece from the Eiffel Tower, meaning athletes can take a bit of Paris home with them.
Here are some reasons why athletes might bite into their medals:
Purity
Although athletes no longer bite into medals to check authenticity, the medal-winning gesture has become an iconic part of Olympic culture.
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In Rio 2016 the trend continued to be prevalent – and that’s proving to be the case in Paris as well.
Optics
Another theory behind why athletes bite into their medals comes from Olympic historian David Wallechinsky.
He believes that media outlets encourage the iconic ritual so they can get their hands on a picture perfect moment. In an interview with CNN, he revealed: “It’s become an obsession with the photographers. “I think they look at it as an iconic shot, as something that you can probably sell. I don’t think it’s something the athletes would probably do on their own.” Despite it being an iconic shot, German luger David Moeller, who won silver at the 2010 Winter Olympics, broke his tooth while doing the pose. Moeller told German newspaper Bild: “The photographers wanted a picture of me holding the medal just with my teeth. “Later at dinner, I noticed a bit of one of my teeth was missing.”
History of mining gold
Biting into medals also comes from the history of mining gold. Miners would often bite into pieces of gold they found to check it was authentic.
