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Made in Chile: 2008 Summer Olympic Medals


The Olympic medals for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics are made from metals mined in Chile.

2008 summer Olympic medals

According to a Bloomberg report, the mining company BHP Billiton handed over the medals to the Olympic organizers earlier in July:

The 2,000 gold medals — each plated with at least six grams (0.2 ounces) of the precious metal — were minted from 13.04 kilograms of gold from BHP’s Escondida mine in Chile. The bulk of the medal is made from silver from Cannington in Queensland [Australia] and smelted in China.

The Escondida mine is the world’s largest copper mine, however, it also produces gold like that used in the Olympic medals.

The Bronze Olympic medals were made from over 800kg of copper mined in BHP’s Spence Mine which is also in northern Chile.

Posted July 11th, 2008 in In the News.

2 Comments

  1. paul said:

    what is the total number of medals minted for the 2008 Olympics in China?

    August 22, 2008

  2. Pepe said:

    Paul,

    According to Coin Link there were 6,000 medals made for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

    August 26, 2008

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