Kerri Walsh Jennings Drops Gold Medal

Kerri Walsh Jennings certainly has a one-of-a-kind Olympic gold medal from the 2012 London Games.

The United States beach volleyball player, who partnered with Misty May-Treanor for their third Olympic gold medal, dropped her latest one on concrete, acquiring scratches in two spots along the rim, according to a report on Yahoo Sports.

Walsh Jennings, a Manhattan Beach resident whose home before that was in Hermosa Beach, said it was good to get the first blemish out of the way. Having two young children has helped pave the way for her belief, she said. 

Here are some tidbits about the Olympic gold medal.

• The “podium value” of the gold medal being awarded at the 2012 London Games is worth approximately $708, according to the World Gold Council, the market development organization of the gold industry, as reported by Forbes. That value is the highest amount place on a gold medal in the history of the modern games. Record high prices for gold and silver are primarily behind the increased value.
• Each gold medal must have six grams of gold as well as 92.5 percent of silver, as stipulated by the International Olympic Committee.
• The 2012 gold medal consists of 92.5 percent silver and 1.34 percent gold. The rest of the gold medal is made of copper.
• There are 302 Olympic victory cermonies at the 2012 Games. If 302 Olympic gold medals were were made of solid gold, it would cost almost $40 million to make them, according to the World Gold Council. 
• The last time pure gold medals were awarded to first place finishers in the Olympic Games was in 1912.
• Olympic medals were first presented at the summer Games in 1904.
• The 2012 medals, gold, bronze and silver, are the biggest and heaviest summer Olympic medals in the history of the Games. Each medal is 85 mm in diameter and between 7 mm thick. The gold medal weighs 0.9 pounds.
• It takes 10 hours to make each Olympic medal, according to the World Gold Council. To create one, a 35mm disc is placed in a furnace and heated to 1,382 degrees Fahrenheit to soften the medal. Then, the newly created metal disc is struck 15 times under 900 tons of pressure.