Olympic gold

Yes, Olympic gold medals contain real gold. At the time of the Rio 2016 Summer Games, the ‘podium value’ of a gold medal was roughly $564 (based on a gold price of $43.76 per gram). Gold medals from the 2014 Sochi Winter Games were worth $566, while a London 2012 Summer Games medal’s value hovered around $708.

Based on a current gold price of $57.99, each of the 5,000 gold medals produced for the Tokyo Summer Games has a projected value of $793.

Tokyo Olympic medals will also be the first comprised of recycled gold, collected through the ‘Tokyo 2020 Medal Project’, which harvested the precious metal from electronic devices donated by the Japanese public.

Read more on the official Olympics website and Forbes.