Why bite gold

Why Olympic athletes are still biting their medals. This is really a thing, isn't it? For sure. That's weird. Why would they eat the medals? So Olympians are checking if they're real? From CNN in But why do athletes feign chomping on their prized medallions, anyway? Hey, wait, are the medals made of real gold, silver and bronze?

You're kidding. These medals are actually made out of recycled metals from electronic devices from Japan : In the two years between April and March , percent of the metals required to manufacture the approximately 5, gold, silver and bronze medals were extracted from small electronic devices contributed by people from all over Japan.

But no gold, silver or bronze? From The Scotsman : The Olympic gold medals, while having a shiny gold exterior and status that would suggest they are cut largely from the luxury metal, are actually mostly composed of silver — with the required ratio of silver in Olympic gold medals being at least So should they bite them at all?

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We've seen it numerous times at the Tokyo Olympic Games already, across a host of disciplines. The official Tokyo account even went as far on Sunday to try to remind people that the medals are not, in fact, edible.

Swiss cyclist Marlen Reusser poses for a photograph and bites her silver medal after the women's individual time trial. So, you don't have to bite them Read More. But why do these victorious athletes decide to celebrate their coronation by pretending to take a bite out of their gold medals? I don't think it's something the athletes would probably do on their own. Gold is a soft metal which dents under slight stress and leaves a mark when gnawed.

Moreover, since the International Olympic Committee IOC stopped awarding pure gold medals in , it is definitely not the reason. German luger David Moeller , who won silver at the Winter Olympics, even broke his tooth while doing the famous pose!

We might not see any more athletes visit the dentist after chomping on their medals, but the tradition has become an integral part of the Olympics and is likely to be seen in the future too. Explained - Why Olympic winners bite their medals.