2012 Summer Olympic Medals Revealed

The 2012 Olympics is just under a year away, and the London Organising Committee (LOCOG) recently unveiled the medals for the upcoming Summer Games. Weighing between 375-400 grams each, the London medals are the heaviest in Olympic history and are already creating a buzz over their symbolic new design.

Get the deats on the medals after the jump.

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The gold, silver and bronze medals, which were designed by British artist David Watkins, are 85mm in diameter and 7mm thick, weighing between 375g and 400g.

The front of the medals features the traditional image of the Greek Goddess of Victory, Nike, stepping out of the Parthenon to arrive in the Host City, while the reverse features an abstract design with the London 2012 logo at its centre, as a metaphor for the modern city.

The design also includes a ribbon, representing the London’s River Thames, and an interlocking grid pattern that radiates from the centre and pulls the design together, giving it a sense of outreach, while also representing the achievements and efforts of Olympic athletes. A square, which encases and balances the design, opposes the circular shape of the medals and emphasises its focus on the centre, reinforcing the sense of ‘place’, as in a map inset.

At the Games next year, more than 2,100 of the medals will be presented to athletes during 302 victory ceremonies. The sport and discipline of the medal-winning athletes will be engraved on the rim of every medal.
SOURCE: Olympic.org 

Incase you were ever curious as to whether or not the medals from the Olympic games were real, here's a breakdown on what they are really made of.

The gold medal:
- 92.5 per cent silver, 1.34 per cent gold and the rest copper (a minimum of 6g of gold).
The silver medal:
- 92.5 per cent silver and the rest copper.
The bronze medal:
- 97.0 per cent copper, 2.5 per cent zinc and 0.5 per cent tin.

So essentially, the gold medalist could swap out his or her medal with the silver one and not be too bent out of shape about it.
Still, first place is first place, and a difference of 6g of gold is worth every bit of heart and effort that the athletes put into their respective sport.
Go for the gold ~vK