How Much Gold In A Gold Medal?

There's actually not that much gold in a gold medal. The medal's design is different for every Olympics. At least 6 grams of gold must be used in each gold medal. This year's Olympic gold medal is 92.5% silver, 1.34% gold and the remainder 6.16% is made up of copper.

Gold and silver medals weigh 412 grams, while the bronze weighs 357 grams. Each medal is 85mm in diameter and 8-10mm thick. These are the biggest and heaviest medals ever produced for the Summer Olympic Games.

The 4,700 medals, including Olympic and Paralympic medals, were made at the Royal Mint headquarters in Llantrisant, South Wales and are housed in the vaults of the Tower of London. Each medal takes 10 hours to produce involving 22 stages of production.

The Olympic Summer Games in London features 302 medal events across 26 medal sports. The first medal awarded will be in Women's 10m Air Rifle (Saturday, July 28) and the final medal to be awarded is expected to be in Women's Modern Pentathlon on Sunday, August 12.