How Much Does An Olympic Gold Medal Weigh?

Editorial credit: fifg / Shutterstock.com

The medals from each Olympic Games have a unique size and design according to their host city and country, meaning the weight of Olympic gold medals has varied from the onset of the Olympics. However, the International Olympic Committee has provided guidelines on how these highly-prized medals should be made.

Modern Olympic gold medals weigh between 17,64 to 28,22 ounces and are not made entirely of gold; instead, they are made of at least 92,5 percent pure silver and then gilded with a minimum of 6 grams (0,21 oz.) of pure, mercury-free gold. The 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics gold medals weighed 19,61 oz.

The last pure gold Olympic medals were given out in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1912. Since then, Olympic gold medals have been made from a silver compound and are then plated with 24 karat or solid gold, making them slightly heavier than the silver medals and more valuable due to the precious metal associated with achieving first place.

Why Don’t Olympic Gold Medals Weigh The Same For All Games?

The gold medals awarded at Winter Olympics games are usually larger than the Summer Olympics gold medals. Unfortunately, gold medals are no longer entirely made of gold, mainly due to the increased cost of the precious metal. The last pure gold medals awarded to Olympic athletes was in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1912, before World War I caused shortages.

Even though today’s gold medals are made predominantly of silver and only plated in gold, these medals are still worth more than the other Olympic medals. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) does not stipulate exactly how much each medal should weigh, but it does have a minimum set of requirements and guidelines for their approximate measurements and precious metal content.

The weight must now be between 17,64 and 28,22 ounces
The diameter must be between 2,76 and 4,72 inches
The thickness must be between 0,12 and 0,39 inches

Silver and gold medals must contain at least 92,5 percent silver (sterling silver)
The gold must weigh at least 0,21 ounces
An attachment for a ribbon or chain

When Were The Lightest And Heaviest Olympic Gold Medals Awarded?

When a country hosts an Olympic Games, they are responsible for providing the medals for those games. Despite the country receiving funding from the various Olympic Committees, it is still a huge financial undertaking to provide medals made of precious metals for the Olympic athletes, so they will produce them according to what they can afford.

The prices of precious metals at the time, plus the economic standing of the hosting country, are two of the main determiners of how big or heavy an Olympic gold medal will be. The lightest Olympic gold medals were probably those from St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. Olympics in 1904, and the London Olympics in 1908, weighing only 0,74 ounces.

The heaviest Olympic gold medal to date comes from the Winter Olympics held in South Korea in 2018, the PyeongChang Winter Olympics. The gold medals weighed 20,69 ounces (almost 1,3 pounds), of which 0,21 ounces were pure gold.

The gold medals at the 2016 Summer Olympics held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, weighed 17,64 ounces – the heaviest gold medals until then. However, the gold within the medals only amassed to about 0.21 ounces of pure gold; the rest was made of sterling silver and copper.

The gold medals awarded at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, weighed in at 19,61 ounces – the heaviest gold medals for Summer Olympics to date. The gold content of these 1,2-pound gold medals was only 1.2% gold – the weight being 0,23 ounces. The designers of the medals had an innovative way of acquiring the gold for their medals.

The Tokyo 2020 Medal Project asked for donations of small electronic devices from citizens across Japan. The devices were stripped and smelted, retrieving the precious metals within them. According to Insider, Japan obtained 70,5 pounds pure gold for their Olympic Medals. Incidentally, it would require 268 cellphones to make up the gold content for just one medal.

The Different Weights For Olympic Gold Medals Through The Years

As you see, Olympic medals are produced by the host country of those games, and they have varied in weight, shape, and size throughout the history of the Olympic Games. More recently, the content and size of the medals are being regulated to a degree but still allow for creativity in the design and acquisition of the precious metals.

The Summer and Winter Olympic medals feature unique designs, usually inspired by their host city. Each Olympic medal does require the following detail, however:

The 5 Olympic rings emblem,

The Greek Goddess of Victory (Nike), standing before the Athenian Panathinaikos Stadium,
The IOC’s official name of the respective Olympic Games, and
The event detail, I.e., the sport for which the medal was awarded.

Below are two tables (Summer Olympics and Winter Olympics, respectively) indicating the dimensions and weights of the various gold medals awarded throughout the history of Olympic Gold medals. The information was sourced from Wikipedia.

Dimensions and Weights of Gold Summer Olympic Medals

Games	Host	Diameter (Inches)	Thickness (Inches)	Weight (Ounces)
1900	Paris, France	2,32 x 1,61	0,13	1,87
1904	St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.	1,49	0,14	0,74
1908	London, Great Britain	1,30	0,17	0,74
1912	Stockholm, Sweden	1,32	0,06	0,85
1920	Antwerp, Belgium	2,32	0,17	2,79
1924	Paris, France	2,17	0,19	2,79
1928	Amsterdam, Netherlands	2,17	0,12	2,33
1932	Los Angeles, California, U.S.	2,18	0,22	3,39
1936	Berlin, Germany	2,17	0,20	2,51
1948	London, Great Britain	2,03	0,20	2,12
1952	Helsinki, Finland	2,01	0,19	1,64
1956	Melbourne, Australia	2,01	0,19	2,40
1960	Rome, Italy	2,68	0,26	7,45
1964	Tokyo, Japan	2,36	0,30	2,19
1968	Mexico City, Mexico	2,36	0,24	4,59
1972	Munich, West Germany	2,60	0,26	3,60
1976	Montreal, Quebec, Canada	2,36	0,23	5,44
1980	Moscow, Russia	2,36	0,27	4,41
1984	Los Angeles, California, U.S.	2,36	0,31	4,98
1988	Seoul, South Korea	2,36	0,28	5,37
1992	Barcelona, Spain	2,76	0,39	8,16
1996	Atlanta, U.S.	2,76	0,20	6,39
2000	Sydney, Australia	2,68	0,20	6,36
2004	Athens, Greece	2,36	0,20	4,77
2008	Beijing, China	2,76	0,24	7,06
2012	London, United Kingdom	3,35	0,39	14,55
2016	Rio de Janeiro, Brazil	3,35	0,24	17,66
2020	Tokyo, Japan	3,35	0,48	19,63

Dimensions and Weights of Gold Winter Olympic Medals

Games	Host	Diameter (Inches)	Thickness (Inches)	Weight (Ounces)
1924	Chamonix, France	2,17	0,16	2,65
1928	St. Moritz, Switzerland	1,99	0,12	1,80
1932	Lake Placid, U.S.	2,17	0,12	1,80
1936	Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany	3,94	0,16	11,44
1948	St. Moritz, Switzerland	2,37	0,15	3,64
1952	Oslo, Norway	2,76	0,12	4,86
1956	Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy	2,37	0,12	4,25
1960	Squaw Valley, U.S.	2,18	0,17	3,35
1964	Innsbruck, Austria	2,84	0,16	3,88
1968	Grenoble, France	2,40	0,13	4,38
1972	Sapporo, Japan	2,26 x 2,41	0,20	4,59
1976	Innsbruck, Austria	2,76	0,21	5,79
1980	Lake Placid, U.S.	3,19	0,24	7,24
1984	Sarajevo, Yugoslavia	2,8 x 2,56	0,12	5,79
1988	Calgary, Alberta, Canada	2,72	0,20	6,81
1992	Albertville, France	3,62	0,36	5,97
1994	Lillehammer, Norway	3,15	0,33	4,63
1998	Nagano, Japan	3,15	0,32	9,22
2002	Salt Lake City, U.S.	3,35	0,39	20,02
2006	Turin, Italy	4,22	0,39	16,56
2010	Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada	3,94	0,24	20,34
2014	Sochi, Russian Federation	3,94	0,39	16,24
2018	Pyeongchang County, South Korea	3,64	0,12	20,69

*Editorial credit: fifg / Shutterstock.com*

Conclusion

The weight of Olympic gold medals has varied through the history of the Olympic Games. The International Olympic Committee has more recently stipulated that medals ought to weigh between 17,64 and 28,22 ounces, and gold medals must contain a minimum of 0,21 ounces of pure gold, usually gilt around a sterling silver medal.