����ý

We've had Olympic medals made of recycled electronics before - but never from parts of the Eiffel Tower!

Medals for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris will feature scrap metal from the Tower taken during refurbishments and repairs.

The metal leftovers had been stored for years in a warehouse in a secret location, but are now finally getting a new purpose.

Thierry Reboul, creative director of Paris 2024, said: "It's the opportunity for the athletes to bring back a piece of Paris with them. The absolute symbol of Paris and France is the Eiffel Tower."

A French luxury jewellery firm based in Paris designed the medals and 5,084 of them will be produced by France's mint, the Monnaie de Paris.

What are Olympic Medals made of?

So is a gold medal actually made entirely of gold?

Not quite - usually the gold and silver medals are both made of silver.

Olympic gold medals are required to be made from at least 92.5% silver, and must contain a minimum of six grams of gold, often as a coating.

In the past, Olympic medals were actually made of pure gold until 1912, but after World War One, countries swapped to making silver medals with a layer of gold on top.

The bronze medals are usually made of a mix of copper, zinc and tin.

Olympic Medal Rules:

• The top three competitors should receive medals

• Shape: Usually circular, featuring an attachment for a chain or ribbon

• Diameter: A minimum of 60mm

• Thickness: A minimum of 3mm

• The host city can design of the reverse of the medal, with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) giving final approval

At the Paris Games the Eiffel Tower scrap metal will make up the centre pieces of the gold, silver and bronze medals, with hexagon-shaped piece forged out of the scrap iron.

Hexagons are said to represent France, with the country sometime referred to as as "L'Hexagone" because of its shape.

Six small clasps that hold the iron pieces in the medals are a nod at the 2.5 million rivets that bind the Eiffel Tower together.

The back of the Olympic medals features the Greek goddess of victory, Nike, charging forward with the famous Acropolis can be seen on one side of her and the Eiffel Tower to the other.

The Paris Olympics will run from 24 July to 11 August with the Paralympics held between 28 August and 8 September.

Medals for the Paralympics feature a view of the Eiffel Tower from underneath, and are stamped with Paris 2024 in braille, in tribute to Frenchman Louis Braille, who invented the reading and writing system for visually impaired people.

Braille is a system of raised dots which enables a blind person or someone with a visual impairment to read and write.

They use their fingers to feel the shape of the dots, which tells them what the words are.