It’s not a chocolate coin wrapped in gold foil, people. That’s actual metal that composes the Olympic medal, so why do athletes bite them?

There’s actually a few reasons, but the most obvious is that it’s a pose photographers really, really like to capture.

“It’s become an obsession with the photographers,” David Wallechinsky, the president of the International Society of Olympic Historians and co-author of “The Complete Book of the Olympics” told CNN in 2012. “I think they look at it as an iconic shot, as something that you can probably sell. I don’t think it’s something the athletes would probably do on their own.”

Biting down on a hunk of metal is more likely something someone might have done during the Gold Rush to test whether the shiny golden rock they just panned for was actually pyrite or fool’s gold. Human teeth are harder than gold but softer than pyrite, according to the Mohs Hardness Scale. This means a quick gnaw to real gold would actually leave an indentation. A hard chew of pyrite, meanwhile, might damage your teeth.

The practice also once served to see whether coins were solid gold or just gold-plated over a cheaper metal, Today I Found Out explains.

With that in mind, it’s likely that Old West/pirate lore led to someone once biting their Olympic medal in a spontaneous, “Is this real life?” moment, and the photographers thought it was cute.

Because if someone really was hoping to discover whether that gold medal is pure gold, their smiles would quickly fade.

Olympic gold medals are actually just 1.34 percent gold. The rest is sterling silver. And much of it is recycled silver this time around, which makes the 2016 Rio medals “the most sustainable ever made,” according to Forbes magazine contributor Anthony DeMarco. DeMarco says the materials that make up a “gold” medal are worth US$564.

    大伙儿，这可不是包裹在金箔纸里的金币巧克力，奥运会金牌是货真价实的金属制品，那为什么运动员热衷于咬金牌？

    还真有几种解释，但最明显的一个原因是，这是一个摄影师非常喜欢捕捉的拍照造型。

    国际奥林匹克历史学家协会主席、《奥

    运大全》的合著者戴维•沃利金斯基在2012年接受CNN采访时说：“这已成为摄影师痴迷的拍照造型，我觉得他们把这看作一种标志性的镜头，认为这样的照片会比较受欢迎。如果让运动员自己选的话，我觉得他们还真不一定会这么做。”

    对着大块的金属咬下去，这更像是淘金热时期的人可能做的事情，目的是测试刚淘出来的金光闪闪的石块是否只是黄铁矿或者愚人金。根据莫氏硬度表，人类牙齿的硬度比黄金大但比黄铁矿小。这意味着迅速咬一下真正的黄金，会留下牙印。而使劲咬黄铁矿则可能会磕坏你的牙。

    《今日发现》解释称，这一做法也曾用来判断硬币是纯金的，还是用较便宜的金属镀金的。

    考虑到这一点，在恍然若梦想到“这是真的么？”的获奖时刻，很可能是美国西部或海盗的传说令某人自发地咬了一下奥运金牌，而摄影师认为这个动作很可爱。因为如果真有人希望测试金牌是不是纯金的，他们很快就笑不出来了。

    奥运金牌实际上含金量只有1.34%，其余的都是标准纯银。福布斯杂志撰稿人安东尼•德马科称，本届奥运会大部分用的是回收银，这使2016年里约奥运金牌成为“有史以来最环保的”。德马科表示，一枚“金”牌的制作材料价值564美元。

    (Chinadaily.com.cn)

Words to Learn 相关词汇

【痴迷】chīmí obsession a compulsive, often unreasonable idea or emotion

【标志性的】biāozhìxìng de iconic symbolic, emblematic, or representative