Paris 2024 Unveils Medals Featuring Fragments of Original Eiffel Tower
The medals for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris will contain a fragment weighing 18 grams from the original 1889 Eiffel Tower.
Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic medals will each contain an 18-gram fragment of the original 1889 Eiffel Tower, organizers announced Thursday.
"We had to find a symbol of the country and the capital, the Eiffel Tower. We couldn't just settle for drawing it on the medal; we had to find the link," said Organizing Committee President, former canoeist Tony Estanguet, the only Frenchman to win three golds in three different Games.
Each of the more than 5,000 medals to be distributed during the Games starting July 26th will embed a piece of the city's most visited monument and a symbol of the country.
"The most sought-after metal of the Games, gold, silver, and bronze, combined with the country's most precious metal, the national symbol. It's a meeting between both," he added.
Estanguet said they sought "something that symbolized the athletes' effort but was also a jewel," so they collaborated with Chaumet, one of the world's most renowned jewelers, located in the luxurious Place Vendôme.
"Each edition is represented by its medals, and it was important for ours to be as beautiful as possible, showing the best of France and carrying a strong message," said Estanguet, who noted they also drew inspiration from the medals of the 1900 and 1924 Games, both in Paris.
Athletes also participated in the design through the commission led by former Olympic medalist Martin Fourcade, France's most decorated athlete, who said, "Nothing is more symbolic than taking a piece of French heritage."
The gold design represents a sun, aiming to highlight the country's radiance, with the hexagonal fragment - a nod to France's map shape - of the Eiffel Tower in the center, found in the archives of the "iron lady's" workshops.
On the other side, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) requires the goddess Athena emerging from Athens' Panathenaic Stadium, linking to the ancient Games.
But Paris has been allowed to include a drawing of the Eiffel Tower on that side too, in homage to Baron Pierre de Coubertin, father of the modern Olympic Games.
For the Paralympic Games, which will also feature an Eiffel Tower fragment, the view of the monument is from below, and the inscriptions are in braille, the language for the blind created by the Frenchman Louis Braille in 1825.
Paralympian athlete Beatriz Hass, with 20 medals, the most by any Frenchwoman, emphasized the importance of treating the medal "like a jewel."
"It's the first time a jeweler has designed medals for any Games, it's quite a symbol," said Antoine Arnault, heir to the luxury brand group LVMH, owner of Chaumet.
With this initiative, Paris 2024 "continues its ambition" to create "Games that leave a mark," estimated Estanguet, behind ideas like holding the opening ceremony on the Seine or certain sports at capital landmarks like the Eiffel Tower, the Grand Palais, or Place de la Concorde.
