Why do Olympic athletes bite their gold medals?

It’s a common sight at gold medal ceremonies – but where does the tradition come from?

Simone Biles celebrates in traditional style with the medal bite (Getty Images)

With the Paris 2024 Olympics in full swing, one sight is increasingly common among the post-event celebrations: athletes biting their medals.

These Olympics have already seen a number of thrills, with Simone Biles making a triumphant return to the gymnastics arena, teenage star Summer McIntosh winning her first Olympic gold in the pool and Tom Daley adding to his remarkable diving legacy with synchro silver.

The medal ceremonies that follow those dramatic moments on the field of play is when the sense of achievement really starts to sink in. And, time and time again, we see athletes biting their gold, silver and bronze medals.

It’s a practice as common and ingrained in the Olympics as some of the sports themselves – but why do they do it?

Adam Burgess with his silver medal following the men’s single canoe final (John Walton/PA Wire)

Why do athletes bite their gold medals?

Back in the day, one of the ways to determine whether the shiny metal in your hand was gold was to bite into it, as gold is softer and more malleable than other metals. Basically, if you took a bite into it and you could see your teeth mark, there’s a good chance it was authentic and actually gold.

That’s largely irrelevant these days, especially in the context of the Olympics, but the tradition has endured. Of course, the gold medals awarded at the Olympics aren’t actually solid gold – it’s more of a compound of around 90 per cent silver, and at least six grams of the valuable stuff. Every medal in Paris contains a tiny piece of the Eiffel Tower, which is made of wrought-iron.

And, partly because of the tradition, when athletes receive their gold medals photographers ask them to take a bite and hold the pose, as it creates the iconic image we’ve become accustomed to.