Gold medal
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A gold medal is a
Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have been awarded in the arts, for example, by the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, usually as a symbol of an award to give an outstanding student some financial freedom. Others offer only the prestige of the award. Many organizations now award gold medals either annually or extraordinarily, including various academic societies.
While some gold medals are solid gold, others are
Military origins
Before the establishment of standard
Competition medals
Medals have historically been given as prizes in various types of competitive activities, especially athletics.
Traditionally, medals are made of the following metals:
Occasionally, Platinum medals can be awarded.
These metals designate the first three
The custom of awarding the sequence of gold, silver, and bronze medals for the first three highest achievers dates from at least the 19th century, with the National Association of Amateur Athletes in the United States awarding such medals as early as 1884.[2]
This standard was adopted for Olympic competition at the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis. At the 1896 event, silver was awarded to winners and bronze to runners-up, while in 1900 other prizes were given, not medals.
Olympic Games
At the modern Olympic Games, winners of a sporting discipline receive a gold medal in recognition of their achievement.
At the
At the 1896 Summer Olympics, winners received a silver medal and the second-place finisher received a bronze medal. In 1900, most winners received cups or trophies instead of medals. The next three Olympics (1904, 1908, 1912) awarded the winners solid gold medals, but the medals themselves were smaller. The use of gold rapidly declined with the onset of the First World War and also with the onset of the Second World War.[5] The last series of Olympic medals to be made of solid gold were awarded at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden.
Olympic gold medals are required to be made from at least 92.5% silver, and must contain a minimum of 6 grams of gold.
From the 1972 Summer Olympics through 2000, Cassioli's design (or a slight modification) remained on the obverse with a custom design by the host city on the reverse. Noting that Cassioli's design showed a Roman amphitheater for what originally were Greek games, a new obverse design was commissioned for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. For the 2008 Beijing Olympics medals had a diameter of 70mm and were 6mm thick, with the front displaying a winged figure of victory and the back showed a Beijing Olympics symbol surrounded by an inset jade circle.
Other gold medal awards
The award of a gold medal, often coupled with the award of silver and bronze medals to the next place finishers, has been adopted in other sports competitions and in other competitive fields, such as music and writing, as well as some competitive games. Typically bronze medals are awarded only to third place, but in some contests there is some variety, such as International barbershop music contests where bronze medals are awarded for third, fourth, and fifth place.[citation needed]
See also
Notes and references
- ^ "Polk County History site "Gold Medals All Around"". Polkcounty.org. Archived from the original on 2004-11-06.
- ^ "Preparing for the Championship" (PDF). Brooklyn Eagle. 15 August 1884. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 May 2011.
- ^ Aristophanes. "585". Plutus. Archived from the original on 2021-06-03.
- ^ Herodotus. "Hdt. 8.26". The Histories. Archived from the original on 2021-06-06.
- ^ Melonyce McAfee (August 10, 2012). "Why Olympians bite their medals". CNN. Archived from the original on August 10, 2012. Retrieved August 10, 2012.
- ^ Jennifer Rosenberg. "Interesting Olympic Facts". Archived from the original on November 10, 2013. Retrieved December 12, 2013.
- ^ {{cite web|website=olympics.com|url=https://olympics.com/ioc/documents/olympic-games/records-and-medals