French jeweler Chaumet has unveiled Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic medals framed with actual items of the Eiffel Tower to present athletes an “unforgettable memento” of the video games.
Like a jewel, every medal has a claw on the again, which as an alternative of a treasured stone holds a hexagonal iron slice from Paris' most iconic monument.
Eliminated throughout varied renovation works all through the 20th century, the scrap metallic was preserved by the Société d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel earlier than being given a brand new objective for the Paris 2024 video games.
“We wished these medals to be actually distinctive, to bear the signature of Paris 2024,” stated Tony Estanguet, president of this 12 months's Video games organizing committee.
“To realize this, we married probably the most highly effective image of the Video games, the medal, with the last word image of Paris and France all over the world, the Eiffel Tower.”
For Paris 2024, the Paralympic Video games will use the identical torches, emblems, mascots and stadiums because the Olympic Video games in an try to advertise larger parity between the occasions.
To that finish, the medals for each video games may even share a typical look, courtesy of Chaumet – the primary jeweler to be entrusted with the design.
On the reverse, the medals are stamped with a three-dimensional radial sample framing the forged iron piece at its heart.
These Eiffel Tower cutouts have been stripped of their unique brown paint and engraved with the Paris 2024 Olympic or Paralympic Video games emblem.
“The Eiffel Tower, the daughter of Paris and the venue for main world occasions, had for use to present athletes an unforgettable memento of Paris,” stated Jean-François Martins, president of the Société d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel.
“With this distinctive metallic from the Eiffel Tower, this medal has a historic character.”
Their hexagonal form is an affectionate nickname for France, l'hexagone, resulting from its six-sided form.
Drawing on conventional jewelery making methods, the iron is held in place by six claw settings – one on every nook – within the Clous de Paris sample generally used on watch dials.
The place the Olympic and Paralympic medals differ is within the colour of their ribbons – blue and crimson respectively – in addition to the design of their obverses.
The Olympic Video games medals characteristic Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, standing in entrance of the Panathinaikos Stadium, which seems on all medals since 2004.
Chaumet's twist on the standard motif sees the stadium flanked by the Athenian Acropolis on one aspect and the Eiffel Tower on the opposite.
For the Paralympic medals, the design workforce had the liberty to take a extra experimental method, embossing them with a graphic sample that recreates a view of the Eiffel Tower from under.
Additionally they characteristic some accessible design particulars, together with the phrases Paris and 2024 written in Common Braille, which was invented by Frenchman Louis Braille in 1824.
Engraved traces across the fringe of the medals assist athletes distinguish the medals by contact – from one line for gold to 3 traces for bronze.
One other ode to the Eiffel Tower comes within the type of graphics on the ribbons, hinting on the construction's sleepers and hinting on the iconic form of the landmark when the 2 components are introduced collectively.
The medals have been designed at Chaumet's workshop in Paris on the Place Vendôme and made close by, throughout the Seine, at France's official mint, the Monnaie de Paris, which 100 years in the past produced the medals for the Olympic Video games in Paris 1924.
The gold and silver medals are made out of metallic licensed as 100% recycled by the Accountable Jewelery Council (RJC), whereas the bronze is made out of scraps from the Monnaie de Paris' personal manufacturing.
With the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Video games set to start on July 26, preparations are at the moment ramping up within the French capital.
Just one everlasting venue – a wood aquatic heart by VenhoevenCS and Ateliers 2/three/four/ – is constructed for the occasion in an try and restrict its local weather footprint.
All different sports activities can be hosted in present and non permanent stadiums, together with a seashore volleyball courtroom that can be put in on the foot of the Eiffel Tower.