The call for tenders was launched last year. According to information from Le Point, Monnaie de Paris has won a major contract as part of the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and will be responsible for striking the medals that will reward the best athletes on the planet.
During the last Summer Olympics, in Tokyo in 2021 – postponed by a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic – more than 1,000 medals, all metals combined, were distributed to sanction 339 events, spread over 33 different disciplines. Their designs, alloy, weight and dimensions will be revealed later.
If the obverse of the medals generally represents the goddess Nike, the personification of victory, the Olympic Committee generally leaves more freedom to the organizing country for its reverse. The choice of materials is also free.
For the French monetary institution, this will not be a first. Indeed, the Monnaie de Paris has already minted Olympic medals five times in its history: during the last two Parisian editions, in 1908 and 1924, as well as at the Winter Olympics in Chamonix (1924) and Grenoble in 1968. It should also be noted that it was also she who struck the medals during the first modern edition of the Olympic Games, organized in Athens in 1896.
On the other hand, during the Albertville Olympics organized in 1992 in Savoie, it was the René Lalique company which was honored for the occasion. The Monnaie de Paris, which has already released many collector coins to commemorate the return of the Olympic Games to the capital, will therefore reconnect with medals for the first time since 1968.
