Olympic medals are an award that many athletes have been pursuing for years. For her sake, huge physical and moral strengths of participants in sports competitions are spent. The principle of receiving medals is quite clear. But ordinary people are often interested in the question of where the awards are stored both before the Olympics and after it.
The Olympic medal is a very valuable item. And not at all from the point of view of jewelry, since the gold medal is made of a base metal, for example, silver and covered with a small layer of gold. The value of this award is different. She is a symbol of the victory and success of this or that athlete and the whole country as a whole. Therefore, it should be stored in a special way.
Until the start of the Olympic Games, the awards are under the protection and control of the host country. For example, medals for the 2012 sporting events in London are housed in the Tower of London. A reliable storage is equipped with alarms, video surveillance and other degrees of protection. In addition, they are monitored around the clock.
After awarding the athletes on the podium, each of them takes their medals for their own use. As a rule, the awards are taken home by athletes and placed on their own wall of honor, in the most conspicuous place.
In most cases, the Olympic medals received by those athletes who have already died are transferred to the Sports Museum by their relatives. There they are stored in special display cases with alarm protection.
The fate of the first medal, which was received by gymnast Hermann Weingartner for winning the Olympic pole vault in 1896, was stolen from the Sports Museum located in Japan. It was an award weighing 68 g. Its diameter was about 50 mm. She came to the Museum through third hands. When the first Olympic champion in 1896 passed away, his family donated the medal as an award trophy in 1964 to Japanese gymnast Yukio Endo. After, he gave this medal to the Museum. There she was placed in an unlocked cell, which was completely unprotected from burglary. And as a result, the medal was stolen.
