Is an Olympic gold medal really worth its weight in gold?
Not really. But it would still fetch a pretty penny.
Forbes.com worked out the numbers and this year's gold medal values at approximately $566.
The gold medal designed for Sochi is actually the heaviest prize handed out to athletes at an Olympics: it weighs 531 grams with a thickness of 10 mm and a diameter of 100 mm. It is 131 grams heavier than the London gold medal.
If it was made of solid gold, the value would be about $21,478. That's one of the reasons why solid metal prizes stopped being handed out at the 1912 games.
An employee works on a silver medal for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi.
The Sochi gold medal actually is made up of 525 grams of silver and 6 grams of gold.
A silver medal contains 525 grams of silver and its value is approximately $323.
The bronze medals are made of copper mixed with zinc and tin (the elements of bronze) and values at $3.25.
The value of the gold medal at the London games was $708, about 20 percent higher than Sochi. But that's not because the Russians are cutting corners -- it's related to the drop in silver and gold prices.
