(Newswire.net — August 24, 2016) — On the list of medal winners at the Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro there were 87 different countries. The most successful, according to custom, were the members of the USA Olympic team, winning a total of 121 medals: 46 gold medals, 37 silver medals and 38 bronze medals. They won 18 more medals than they won at the previous Olympic Games in London, where they won the same number of gold medals.
Second to the American Olympic athletes were Great Britains athletes, winning 27 gold medals, one less than the Chinese Olympic athletes, who were in third place with number of medals won. The Chinese athletes in Rio won 12 gold medals less than they did in the London games, and 25 less than the 51 gold medals they won in the Olympic games in Beijing.
All these medals have sentimental value, but they are not actually worth much.
This years gold medal is heavy 500 grams and has a diameter of 85 millimeters (the largest in the history of the Games). the gold medals consists of 98.8 percent silver (494 grams) and 1.2 percent gold (6 grams), reports Chemistry About.
The silver medals are made entirely of silver, the bronze medals are made of 95 percent copper (475 grams) and five percent zinc (25 grams).
The 2016 Summer Olympics featured eco-friendly metals. The gold used in the gold medals is free of mercury contamination. Mercury and gold are notoriously difficult elements to separate from each other. The sterling silver used for the silver medals was partly recycled. Part of the copper used to make the bronze for the bronze medals was also recycled.
What is the market value of these medals?
A lot, because there are people who would pay a fortune to own an Olympic medal, especially one of the gold medals won by Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt.
The true value of the gold medal however, is 548 dollars, 292 dollars for the silver medal, and only 2.16 dollars for the bronze medal.
At the Olympics in Rio granted a total of 2,488 medals: 812 gold and silver, and 864 bronze. The organizers had to pay 1,868 dollars to make the medals, and 683,778 dollars for the materials to make the most valuable medals in the sports world.
Now it is clear why the gold medals are not made of pure gold.
If the most valuable medal is all made of gold, it would be cost 21,674 dollars, a lot more than 548 dollars! This means that the amount of gold for the 812 medala will cost 17,599,182 dollars.
Of course, for the athletes who are training hard to win an Olympic medal, the story about the market value and the cost of making the medal, means nothing. For them, medals are priceless.
It’s exciting to see these stories of the athletes we love conquering the Olympics.As a person who loves sports, it is very exciting and happy to see our favorite Olympic athletes win medals. It is also a wonderful thing to sweat at sports venues. I believe all sports lovers will be obsessed with medals. You can customize medals for your sports club, for your sports event, or even for yourself. Custom medals can inspire you to love sports even more. You can customize any shape you want, and you can even copy an Olympic medal.