Athletes who win medals at the 2024 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Paris won’t just win gold, silver or bronze. Their medals will also include a piece of iron — wrought-iron, to be exact, from the Eiffel Tower itself.
Organizers of the Games said Thursday that each of the 5,084 medals created for the Paris events will be decorated on one side with a hexagon-shaped piece of iron recovered from the French capital’s iconic landmark.
“This exceptional object had to meet another very strong symbol of our country and our capital,” Tony Estanguet, the president of the Paris 2024 organizing committee, said at an event to unveil the medals’ design in Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris where several Olympic events will be held.