Gold medalists take home de facto silver medals

From left are the silver, gold and bronze medals used at the Tokyo Olympics. EPA-Yonhap

By Kang Seung-woo

Even though Olympic champions may win gold at the Tokyo Olympics, they actually appear to be bringing home silver medals, due to the hard-won hardware's composition.

According to Compound Interest, a science communication website that examines chemical compounds, the gold medals awarded at the ongoing Tokyo Games are made from gold-plated pure silver, with only 1.2 percent gold ― or six grams ― in the 556-gram medals.

The 550-gram silver medals are made from pure silver, while the bronze medals are made of an alloy of 95-percent cooper and five-percent zinc, which weighs 450 grams.

Olympic gold medals are required to be made from at least 92.5 percent silver and must contain a minimum of 6 grams of gold, as in the Tokyo awards.

According to CNN, the estimated price of the latest gold medal is some $800 (920,000 won), while the silver is worth $450 and the bronze $5.

The price tag of this year's gold medal is $250 higher than that of a gold medal handed out at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, which was worth $550, due to inflation in the prices of those metals. In fact, PyeongChang's gold had 30 grams more silver.

In Olympic history, in only three Games ― 1904, 1908 and 1912 ― were athletes awarded solid gold medals. Since the two world wars, gold-plated medals have been widely used.

CNN also reported that a winner's medal from the 1896 Athens Olympics sold for $180,000 at auction, while Cuban shooter Leuris Pupo's gold medal from the London Olympics fetched $73,200.

One of U.S. track and field athlete Jesse Owens' four gold medals earned at the 1936 Berlin Olympics sold for $1.47 million in 2013.

According to the Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee, this year, each medal was produced from metals extracted from recycled consumer electronics.