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The Olympics is really my favorite sporting event. Although, I think I have a problem with that silver medal. Because when you think about it, you win the gold
by bmmayer1 5y ago
The Olympics is really my favorite sporting event. Although, I think I have a problem with that silver medal. Because when you think about it, you win the gold - you feel good, you win the bronze - you think, "Well, at least I got something". But when you win that silver it's like, "Congratulations, you almost won. Of all the losers you came in first of that group. You're the number one loser. No one lost ahead of you!"
- Jerry Seinfeld
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- cdstyh 5y agoCompare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to other people.
- gnicholas 5y agoWell, there's a silver lining (pun intended), which is that the silver medal is made out of pure silver and is therefore worth much more than the bronze medal. The gold medal is made of solid silver that is plated by a small amount (4oz, IIRC) of gold. EDIT: 6 grams, not 4oz, as pointed out below.
- rowanG077 5y agoThis is one of the things I find most annoying about the Olympics. Oh you spend billions on useless frivolous things. And then the literal gold medal is fake.
- gnicholas 5y agoUnless they made the medals much smaller, that would be incredibly expensive. They give out thousands of medals, after all. Someone smarter than me can calculate the cost based on the size of the medals and the density of gold. Also, athletes would probably feel more pressure to sell their medals if they were solid gold. That would enrich them, which is good, but there's something to be said for the medals remaining in the hands of the athletes.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y agoEdit: this is wrong, see the comment below, I misunderstood an article that said "339 medals will be awarded". It's 339 events will be contested, and of course team events have multiple medals. Well, not really thousands of medals - in this year's summer games there will be 339 medals awarded, so 113 gold medals. Tokyo gold medals weigh 556g, so if they were solid gold (their weight would differ a bit but be in the same ball park) each gold medal would be worth nearly $33,000 just in metal costs, which would work out to a total of $3,694,286 for all the gold medals.
- strulovich 5y agoI think you miscalculated. 339 sets of medals will be given for a total of 5000. Also, the Paralympic Games add some more medals. So the actual number will be north of 10 million it seems.
- choeger 5y agoThat's why I think there should be two silver medals, immediately given to the winner of two semi-finals. If you think about any sport with a one-on-one final, the silver medal is for the loser of that final. But the same team/athlete won a semi-final and were probably excited when they did. So just hand them the medal at that point. Things are a tad more complicated for tournaments with 3+n finalists. But I have the feeling that being the second-fastest out of ten sprinters is not a bad thing.
- sgustard 5y agoIf they introduced a 4th place medal, would the bronze medalists feel worse?
- dehrmann 5y agoRemember the McKayla Maroney "not impressed" meme? Silver medal.