Every gold medal today—and I mean every single one from the last 112 years—is made mostly of pure silver, then coated with a layer of gold. Think of it as a silver donut that got a gold icing dip. The International Olympic Committee has a specific rule: the medal must contain at least 92.5% silver, and the gold plating must weigh at least six grams. Six grams is about the weight of a paperclip. So, you’re wearing a silver coin that someone politely painted gold.
If they were solid gold, each medal would cost around $40,000 today. That’s the price of a used sedan, or a year of premium Netflix subscriptions for the entire neighborhood. The Olympics would go bankrupt faster than you can say “citius, altius, fortius.” So instead, winners get a medal that’s worth about $800 to $1,000 in raw materials. Still a nice chunk of change, but not “sell-the-kidney” money.
The Biting Tradition
You’ve seen the photo: a sweaty athlete bites their medal for the cameras. It’s adorable, right? Well, it’s also a total lie. In the old days, merchants bit gold coins to test if they were real—gold is soft and would leave tooth marks. But Olympic gold is just silver with a thin layer. If an athlete bit down hard, they’d leave a gummy dent and reveal the silver underneath. That’s not a victory pose; that’s a product recall moment. The photographers just love the quirk, so athletes go along with it, probably thinking, “I’ll just pretend this tastes like victory and not regret.”
I once bit a gold-colored toy coin from a claw machine. I chipped a tooth. So I respect the athletes’ restraint. They’ve mastered the art of the fake bite, like a actor pretending to eat a sandwich on TV. Their dentist is probably the happiest person on the team.
Are Olympic gold medals real gold? Burning medals questions, answered
