The medals around the necks of the victorious athletes at the Beijing Olympics are among the best in Games’ history, organizing officials and medal producers said on Tuesday.
Zhao Dongming, the Beijing Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (BOCOG) cultural activities director, said there were 302 events in 28 sports at the Beijing Olympics. In total, a 1,000 each of gold, silver and bronze medals were made according to the stipulations of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
The medals were made according to the design standard, Zhao said. He cited reports by authorities including the National Center of Quality Supervision and Inspection on Gold-Silver Products and Shanghai Research Institute of Materials.
Tests on the medals awarded at the Beijing Games showed the purity of gold and silver reached 99.9 percent, he said.
The medals, which incorporated jade from northwestern Qinghai Province, were made by the Shanghai Mint under the China Banknote Printing and Minting Corp.
“We adopted advanced technologies and enhanced management during the production,” said Luo Yonghui, a senior designer at the mint. “We are confident that the medals at the Beijing Olympics are the best in Olympic history.”
“To ensure that each gold medal contains at least six grams of pure gold, we weighed each one before, during and after the medal was gilded. As the medals incorporate precious jade, we made 45 experiments on each medal. The jade never fell off.”
The IOC has strict stipulations on the material, identification, weight, size and etchings on the medals. Each must be at least 70 mm across and six mm thick. The gold and silver medals must contain at least 92.5 percent silver, and at least 6 grams of 24-carat gold must coat each gold medal. Bronze medals are mostly made of copper.
The raw materials for the Beijing Olympic medals were provided by the Australia-based BHP Billiton. The company’s mining sites in Chile and Australia provided 13.04 kg of gold, 1,340 kg of silver and 6,930 of kg copper.
“All the raw materials passed examination and the reports were submitted to the IOC,” Zhao added.