Probably you have witnessed the similar scenes when winners on pedestals bite theirs medals posing at cameras. What is the reason of this practice?
The explanation is simple. There’s actually a few reasons, but the most obvious is that it’s a pose photographers really like to capture. In fact this tradition is not new and dates back to 1991 when for the first time athletes started to bite their medals.
From left to right, silver medalist Emma Johansson of Sweden, gold medalist Anna van der Breggen of Netherlands and bronze medalist Elisa Longo Borghini of Italy
bite their medals following the women’s road race at Rio 2016 (Patrick Smith/Getty Images)
Photographers often ask the medalists to do that in order to get rid of boring images. The practice also served to see whether medals were solid gold or just gold-plated over a cheaper metal.
“It’s become an obsession with the photographers,” David Wallechinsky, the president of the International Society of Olympic Historians and co-author of “The Complete Book of the Olympics” told CNN in 2012. “I think they look at it as an iconic shot, as something that you can probably sell. I don’t think it’s something the athletes would probably do on their own.”
Biting down on a hunk of metal is more likely something someone might have done during the Gold Rush to test whether the shiny golden rock they just panned for was actually pyrite or fool’s gold. Human teeth are harder than gold but softer than pyrite, according to the Mohs Hardness Scale, which categorizes how easily minerals scratch. This means a quick gnaw to real gold would actually leave an indentation. A hard chew of pyrite, meanwhile, might damage your teeth.
David Moeller bites silver medal
In 2010 member of Germany’s Olympic team David Moeller broke tooth while biting silver medal. For this reason some champions prefer to be captured by kissing the medals.
Olympic gold medals are actually just 1.34 percent gold. The rest is sterling silver. And much of it is recycled silver this time around, which makes the 2016 Rio medals “the most sustainable ever made,” according to Forbes magazine contributor Anthony DeMarco. DeMarco says the materials that make up a “gold” medal are worth $564.
