KARACHI: The 4,700 Olympic and Paralympic medals that are guarded alongside Britain’s crown jewels are certainly precious as the recent gold and silver booms have ensured the medals are the most expensive in Olympic history. The prices of the valuable metals have doubled since the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
However, the gold makes up only a meager portion of the alloy of which the medals are made up of. A gold medal weighs about 410 grams containing only six grams of gold that makes only 1.34% of its weight, the remainder being silver compound (92.5%) and copper.
Additionally, the dimensions of the London medals (85 millimeters in diameter and seven millimeters thick) makes them the heaviest ever for the Summer Olympics as in Beijing, the medals were around half as heavy at 200 grams.
All eyes are set on the London Games due to which the organizing committee may be facing immense pressure as the President of the Olympic Council of Asia Sheikh Ahmadal Fahadal Sabah says,“I am very excited and to follow up all the preparations now we are a couple of days from the opening ceremony. I think London faces a big challenge because Beijing was such a great success. London is a famous capital city and everyone is happy to be here, but people are looking for the technical things like the opening ceremony, the competitions and the venues.”
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