Featured Image Credit: Alex Pantling/Getty Images / Twitter/Viktor Axelsen
Topics: Olympics
Yasmeen Hamadeh
Topics: Olympics
A two-time gold winning Olympic athlete has shared a video that's gone viral online comparing the look and quality of the gold medals given at the Tokyo 2020 vs. Paris 2024 games.
Over the past month we've been blessed with the rollercoaster that was the 2024 Paris Olympics.
From a controversial opening ceremony to a cool and collected pistol shooter, the Paris games were essentially a buffet of memorable moments.
And amidst all the good, the bad, and the ugly, people had a lot to say about the Olympic medals being given out this year.
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The interest was arguably first sparked after US skateboarder Nyjah Huston posted a video of his bronze medal that seemed to deteriorate a little over a week after he obtained it.
The athlete took to his Instagram stories and said: "Alright, so these Olympic medals look great when they’re brand new.
"But after letting it sit on my skin with some sweat for a little bit and letting my friends wear it over the weekend, they’re apparently not as high quality as you’d think. It’s looking rough."
He proceeded to call on the Olympics to 'step up the quality' of their medals saying: "I don’t know, Olympic medals, we gotta step up the quality a little bit."
Well it now seems that Huston is not alone in his observation on the quality of the medals this year, as Danish badminton player Viktor Axelsen has shared a video comparing gold medals he respectively won at the 2020 Tokyo games and the Paris 2024 games.
In the video posted to Twitter, it's quite clear that the gold medal from the Tokyo games is visibly shinier despite being almost a few years old already.
While each medal boasts its own unique design, that are in my opinion both pretty great, users online have seemed to side with Tokyo for having the better quality medal.
"The Tokyo one looks expensive meanwhile the Paris just meh," one user wrote.
"It looks like the Paris medal just identifies as gold," another user added.
"The Paris one is so dirty. Why?", questioned another.
However, some people have come to Paris' defense mentioning that the gold medals contain a piece of metal from the Eiffel tower.
"The Paris medal is made with a piece of Eiffel Tower, which is invaluable," one user noted — and honestly is incredibly based.
Another said, "Paris ones are more creative design."
Fans were previously shocked to find that Olympic gold medals are actually made up of around 500g of pure silver with only six grams of gold.
But isn't winning an Olympic medal priceless though, regardless of what it looks like?