Paris Olympics medals are monumental: They're made with metal chunks from the Eiffel Tower
Paris: An Olympic medal inlaid with a chunk of the Eiffel Tower. How's that for a monumental prize? A hexagonal, polished piece of iron taken from the iconic landmark is being embedded in each gold, silver and bronze medal that will be hung around athletes' necks at the July 26-August 11 Paris Games and Paralympics that follow.
Games organisers revealed their revolutionary design on Thursday.
Simone Biles has seven medals from her two previous Olympics and LeBron James has two golds and one bronze from London, Beijing and Athens. But neither of those athletes who are targeting the Paris Games nor any of the roughly 36,600 other medalists at 29 previous Summer Olympics stretching back to 1896 ever owned one quite like these.
By making history at the Games, Paris medalists will take a bit of France and its history home, too.
Here's a deep dive into the medals that are sure to wow: The 330-meter (1,083-foot) tall tower is made of 18,038 iron parts. But it's also getting a bit long in the tooth. Built for the 1889 World's Fair — which celebrated the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution — engineer Gustave Eiffel's tower was only intended to stand for 20 years. Instead, it just goes on and on — thanks to a bit of rejuvenating surgery from time to time and constant care. The 135-year-old tower is a veteran of two previous Games — in 1900 and 1924, the last held in Paris. The iron pieces embedded in the center of the Olympic medals each weigh 18 grams (about two-thirds of an ounce). They were cut from girders and other bits that were swapped out of the Eiffel Tower during renovations and stored for safekeeping, according to Joachim Roncin, head of design at the Paris Games organizing committee.
''The concept came after a few discussions. We realized that there's one symbol known across the world, which is the Eiffel Tower,'' Roncin said. ''We said to ourselves, Hey, what if we approached the Eiffel Tower Operating Co. to see if it's possible to get a bit of the Eiffel Tower to integrate into the medal?''' The company agreed, and ''the dream became reality,'' he said. ''It's really a bit of metal from the Eiffel Tower.'' They were stripped of paint, polished and varnished for their second life.
They are stamped with ''Paris 2024'' and the Games logo — which looks like a flame or the face of a woman with a chic bob haircut. The five Olympic rings are also stamped on the iron of the Olympic medals. The Paralympic logo of three swooshes, known as the Agitos, is stamped on the medals for the August 28-September 8 Paralympics.
The iron pieces' hexagonal form represents France. The French sometimes refer to their country as ''L'Hexagone'' — the hexagon — because of its shape.
Paris jewelry house Chaumet designed the medals. Six small clasps that hold the iron pieces in the medals are a wink at the 2.5 million rivets that bind the Eiffel Tower together. Around the iron pieces are disks of gold, silver or bronze. They're crinkled to reflect the light, making the medals shine. Games organizers say the metal is all recycled, not newly mined.
Olympic medals have tended to be quite sober. In what was a first, medals for the 2008 Beijing Olympics contained inlaid jade disks. But Paris is the only host city to include chunks of a famous monument.
''Having a gold medal is already something incredible. But we wanted to add this French touch and we thought that the Eiffel Tower would be this cherry on the top,'' Roncin said. ''Having a piece of it is a piece of history.'' The ancient Greek goddess of victory, Nike, features on the Olympic medals' other side — as she has done at every Games since 1928. But Paris has also added a small representation of the Eiffel Tower on that side, in another break with tradition. The other side of the Paralympic medals shows a view of the tower as if looking upward from underneath. For visually impaired people, ''Paris 2024'' is written in Braille and the edges have notches: one for gold, two for silver, three for bronze.
The Paris Mint is manufacturing 5,084 medals — about 2,600 for the Olympics and 2,400 for the Paralympics. That is likely more than will be required. Some will be stored in case that medals need to reassigned after the Games, which can happen when medal-winners are subsequently stripped of the prizes for doping. Some go to museums. Any other spares could be destroyed.
The gold medals weigh 529 grams and are not pure gold. They are made of silver and plated with 6 grams of gold.
The silvers weigh 525 grams. The bronzes weigh 455 grams and are a copper, tin and zinc alloy.
The medals are 85 millimeters across and 9.2 millimeters thick.
They'll come in a dark-blue box from Chaumet and a certificate from the Eiffel Tower Operating Co. that the iron pieces came from the monument. Paris organizers didn't give a monetary value for the medals.
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T'gana RTC strike: Talks between govt, employees successful
Hyderabad (PTI): Talks between employees of Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (RTC) who were on strike and the state government concluded successfully on Friday as the government agreed to the key demands of the workmen.
Following a day-long marathon of talks between the leaders of the employees' Joint Action Committee (JAC) and the cabinet sub-committee, the government announced after midnight that it acceded to the demands, including a merger of RTC with the government, 11 per cent pay revision and elections to the employees' unions.
A committee comprising officials and employee leaders would be appointed over the merger of RTC with the government, it said.
The RTC management has also agreed to address the remaining issues as well, an official release said.
The employees would call off their strike and the RTC buses would hit the roads shortly, it said.
The employees had been on an indefinite strike since April 22 over a series of demands, including the merger of RTC with the government.
Earlier in the day, a driver of the RTC, who attempted suicide on April 23 during the strike, died at a hospital here in the early hours of Friday.
Shankar Goud, a 55-year-old driver, set himself ablaze by pouring petrol at Narsampet in Warangal district when the employees were staging a protest on Thursday in support of their demands.
Goud suffered serious burns, was initially admitted to a state-run hospital in Warangal, and later shifted to a super-speciality hospital in Hyderabad for advanced treatment.
"He succumbed (to injuries) at about 1.30 am on Friday," a senior official said.
The driver’s body was taken to his relative’s village, Muttojipet in Warangal district, for funeral rites.
Tension prevailed in Muttojipet as his family members and RTC employees attempted to take the body to the Narsampet bus station, where he worked, to enable his colleagues to pay their last respects. However, police did not permit this, citing law-and-order concerns.
This led to a deadlock before the funeral could proceed.
Union Minister Bandi Sanjay Kumar criticised the Telangana government for not allowing the body to be taken to the Narsampet bus station.
Kumar, Minister of State (Home), visited Muttojipet village in Warangal district, where the funeral was held, and paid homage to Goud.
“They (family members) want to take the body to the bus depot for five minutes. Is the RTC bus depot in Pakistan or Bangladesh? They are emotionally attached to taking the body there. The government is hurting sentiments and creating fear among RTC employees,” Kumar told reporters.
He also expressed anger at the police for not allowing the body to be taken to the bus station and staged a protest, according to a release from his office.
RTC employees and BJP workers attempted to take the mortal remains in an ambulance to Narsampet, but were stopped by the police.
Later, after discussions with the police, the family members and RTC employees agreed to conduct the funeral in the village.
Sanjay Kumar, stating he would abide by the family’s decision, left the village after the funeral was conducted there.
Transport Minister Ponnam Prabhakar said an ex gratia of Rs 10 lakh, a house, and a government job would be provided to the kin of Goud.
Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy expressed shock over the employee’s death and conveyed deep condolences to the grieving family, according to the release.
The RTC employees’ JAC had earlier announced an agitation programme from April 24 to 29, including silent marches and submission of memorandums to MLAs and other leaders.
