Now this has nothing to do with the quality of the medal – both are gilded with 6 grams of gold – but as the price of the yellow metal has fallen over the last four years, Rio’s Olympians will be competing for a prize worth financially less than the London 2012 equivalent.
UK athletes can take solace in the fact that the recent weakness of the sterling against the dollar means that the value of their medals has only fallen £2 over the last four years, when exchange rates are taken into account. But US swimmer Michael Phelps – who already has a medal haul worth $4,566 at current rates – might not be quite as driven to win again knowing that this time around his prize will not be as great. The rest of the field can dream.
Looking back at the last five Olympics, there might be more athletes who could be excused for feeling a bit miffed. Denise Lewis, who won the heptathlon in Sydney 2000, collected a medal worth over 400 per cent less in sterling than Jessica Ennis-Hill, who won the event 12 years later. Triple jump legend Jonathon Edwards cruelly missed out on gold in 1996, before snatching victory in Sydney four years on. However, with gold prices falling dramatically in the interim period, his medal was worth over a third less than the one he could have won in Atlanta.
Rower Steve Redgrave has five Olympic titles to his name, winning the last in Sydney 2000. At that point his medals had a value of £180. But thanks to sterling’s recent weakening against the dollar – and huge leaps in the value of bullion – his medal collection is now worth £945. As uncertainty becomes increasingly prevalent in 2016 following the UK’s vote to leave the EU, he might want to consider holding onto his gold medals for a little longer.
