Olympic Medal facts
While investigating facts about Olympic Medals and Olympic Medals By Country, I found out little known, but curios details like:
Japan is making all of its medals for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics out of discarded electronics
how olympic medals are made?
Michael Phelps has more Summer Olympic gold medals than 80% of countries in history even when taking into account countries that no longer exist.
What country has the most olympic medals?
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what are olympic gold medals made of. Here are 50 of the best facts about Olympic Medal Table 2016 and Olympic Medal Table 2012 I managed to collect.
what olympic medals made of?
-
Wilma Rudolph had polio as an infant and was unable to walk properly until she was 11. For several years, her family had to massage her legs four times a day, and she had to wear a metal brace. In 1960, she became the first American woman to win three gold medals in an Olympic event.
-
Medals from 2016 Rio Olympic Games are defective and show rusting, chipping
-
It's estimated that 16% of the world's gold and 22% of the world's silver is contained in Japan's electronics alone- so much that Japan is asking its citizens to donate old electronics to make the Olympic medals.
-
During the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, McDonalds ran a nationwide promotion offering free products every time a US athlete won a medal. It turned into their most costly promotion ever when the Soviet Union, the powerhouse team of the time, boycotted the event, letting the USA win big.
-
About Anthony Ervin, a swimmer who won a gold medal at the 2000 Olympics, retired at 22, begun abusing drugs, at one moment being hardly able to raise from a sofa for days on end. In 2011 he got back into swimming, and at the 2016 Olympics became the oldest swimmer to win a gold medal.
-
Japan aims to power the Tokyo Olympics with 100% renewable energy. They plan to use wind & solar energy to power the stadiums & athletes village. They also want to recycle the small amounts of gold, silver & copper from around 80,000 old phones by using the metals to create 5,000 medals.
-
After winning the gold at the 1980 Olympics, Polish vaulter Wladyslaw Kozakiewicz, in defiance of the jeering Soviet crowd, flipped "the arm", twice. The Soviets later asked that he be stripped of his medal to which the Polish government replied that it was caused by "involuntary muscle spasms".
-
Anders Haugen, the only American to ever medal in ski jumping. He finished 4th in the 1924 olympics, but when a historian reviewed the results 50 years later he found a scoring error. Shortly thereafter, Anders went to Norway at 86 years old and was awarded his long overdue bronze medal.
-
Steven Bradbury, a speedskater and Australia’s first gold medalist in the Salt Lake Winter Olympics, won his medal by purposely going slower than the other 4 skaters and hoping that one or more of them would crash to secure at least a bronze. All four crashed near the finish line.
-
In 1984 Mcdonalds offered free Big Macs,Fries, or a Coke for each Gold Silver or Bronze in the Olympics. During that year the Soviet Union boycotted the US olympics and therefore the US got many more medals than expected which became a huge failure for Mcdonalds
Olympic Medal data charts
For your convenience take a look at Olympic Medal figures with stats and charts presented as graphic.
Why olympic winners bite their medals?
You can easily fact check why olympic gold medalist by examining the linked well-known sources.
In South Korea, men who win Olympic medals do not have to participate in the two year long mandatory military service.
During the 2012 London Olympic NBC aired a promo for the Today Show congratulating Missy Franklin on winning the gold medal in the 100-meter backstroke minutes before the network aired the time-delayed footage of the event. - source
A Japanese gymnast, Shun Fujimoto, once broke his knee at the Olympics in 1976 but didn't tell anyone and performed miraculously despite his injury, winning his team the gold medal - source
The USA won the last ever Olympic gold medal for rugby in 1924 and are therefore technically still reigning champions.
The early modern olympics used to feature an art competition, with sections dedicated to literature, graphic art, music and more. The Amsterdam Olympic stadium is actually a gold medal winner for architecture. - source
When pakistan won olympic gold medal in hockey?
26.5 million Canadians tuned into the gold medal final in men's hockey during the 2010 Winter Olympics. That's 80% of the entire country's population.
How much is an olympic gold medal worth?
Spain's basketball team was stripped of their Special Olympic gold medal after it was discovered they organized a team of healthy individuals to pose as mentally handicapped.
Jesse Owens, an African-American track athlete who won a gold medal at the 1936 "Nazi Olympics", said: "Hitler didn't snub me—it was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram.”
After a ticker-tape parade to celebrate his Olympic medals, Jesse Owens was not permitted to enter through the main doors of the Waldorf Astoria and instead forced to travel up to the event in a freight elevator to reach the reception honoring him.
At the 2006 Winter Olympics, a Norwegian coach handed a spare ski pole to a Canadian after she broke hers during a relay race. The Canadian skier went on to win a silver medal. Canadian citizens were so appreciative they collectively gave the coach more than 5 tons of Maple Syrup.
The night before the Olympic final, Michael Jordan apparently spent the night drinking and gambling all night, then he went on a long day of press appearances, plus 18 holes of golf in Barcelona, before he went on to lead Team USA in a gold-medal winning victory over Croatia.
Olympic medal infographics
Beautiful visual representation of Olympic Medal numbers and stats to get perspecive of the whole story.