Paris Olympics medals unveiled

(8 Feb 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Saint-Denis, Paris, France - 5 February 2024
1. Close up of gold medals for the Paralympics in Paris (left) and Paris Olympic Games (right)
2. Gold, silver and bronze medals for the Paris Olympics and Paralympics, each with a hexagonal piece of the Eiffel Tower in the center
3. Various of gold medals for Paralympics (left) and Olympic Games (right) being held by Joachim Roncin, head of design at the Paris Games organizing committee.
ANNOTATION: The medals for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games and Paralympics are monumental - they're made with metal chunks from the Eiffel Tower.

4. SOUNDBITE (English) Joachim Roncin, head of design at the Paris Games organizing committee: ++PARTLY OVERLAID WITH CLOSE OF MEDAL++
"This one is made of, of course, gold. And in the center you can see that something is different. It’s made of the Eiffel Tower. It’s 18 grams of the original metal of the Eiffel Tower.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Paris, France - 6 February 2024
6. Various of Eiffel Tower
ANNOTATION: The 330-meter (1,083-foot) tall tower is made of 18,038 iron parts.

7. Tilt up of Eiffel Tower
8. Close of Eiffel Tower’s iron work
ANNOTATION: The pieces embedded at the center of the medals were cut from girders and other bits that were swapped out of the Eiffel Tower during renovations.

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Saint-Denis, Paris, France - 5 February 2024
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Joachim Roncin, head of design at the Paris Games organizing committee:
"Of course, having a gold medal is already something incredible. But we wanted to add this French touch and we thought that the Eiffel Tower would be this cherry on the top. So we had this idea. And, of course, it’s something incredible having gold medal plus the piece of the history of France."
10. Close of Paralympic gold medal
11. SOUNDBITE (French) Benoît Verhulle, workshops head at Paris jeweler Chaumet: ++ENDS ON FOLLOWING SHOT++
"We tried to pour the best of ourselves, the best of the company, into this medal. So that the athlete who will have made so many sacrifices to obtain this grail feels proud when he has this around his neck, that he will feel that he’ll have this piece of Paris close to his heart.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Paris, France - 6 February 2024
12. Tilt of Eiffel Tower

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Paris, France - 7 February 2024
13. Pan upward from underneath the Eiffel Tower
ANNOTATION: The 135-year-old tower is also a veteran of two previous Games — 1900 and 1924, the last held in Paris.
STORYLINE:
An Olympic medal inlaid with a chunk of the Eiffel Tower. How's that for a monumental prize?

A hexagonal, polished piece of iron taken from the iconic landmark is being embedded in each gold, silver and bronze medal that will be hung around athletes' necks at the July 26-August 11 Paris Games and the Paralympics that follow.

Games organizers revealed their revolutionary design on Thursday.

None of the roughly 36,600 medallists at 29 previous Games stretching back to 1896 ever owned one quite like these.

By making history at the Games, Paris medallists will take a bit of France and its history home, too.

The 330-meter (1,083-foot) tall tower is made of 18,038 iron parts. But it's also getting a bit long in the tooth. Built for the 1889 World's Fair — which celebrated the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution — engineer Gustave Eiffel's tower was only intended to stand for 20 years.

Instead, it just goes on and on — thanks to a bit of rejuvenating surgery from time to time and constant care.









Paris jewelry house Chaumet designed the medals.


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