A Beijing Olympics gold medal contains about .19 ounces of gold - which is used to coat the mainly silver medal body. At around $800(US) per ounce, its bullion value would be around $200. (more details). Fortunately, the value of an Olympic gold is more than just its bullion content.
The games of the 29th Olympiad in Beijing (or Peking) have come to a spectacular close and the Chinese can be proud of their achievements in their organisation and presentation.
As Britain showed with its 19 golds, medals can be won even by Brits - given the support of coaches, physios, doctors, nutritionists, sports psychologists and lots of training facilities. Oh, and performance directors: it is theatre after all. The debate now is about how much money needs to be spent to maintain the British gold rush for London in 4 years time.
But if all it takes is money, what does winning a gold really mean?
We might as well start by dismissing the Olympic Creed. Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics, came up with the Olympic Creed after hearing a speech by Bishop Ethelbert Talbot at a service for Olympic champions during the 1908 Olympic Games in London. The Olympic Creed states «The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.» That went out the window as soon as professional athletes were allowed to compete (officially in the 1988 games in Seoul).
Having been Olympic also-rans for many decades Britain now spends about £100m ($200m) a year on its elite sports, funded mainly by the national lottery. Australian sport, irritated by (as they see it) their poor performance relative to the poms, is pushing for more funding to help them win more titles next time.
As in the English premier league, olympic talent is bought and sold like the commodity it has become.
Top notch coaches like German national Jürgen Gröbler OBE (who coached the East German rowing teams to a stack of gold medals from 1972 until 1988) were lured to Britain with the promise of money and resources and have repeated their success with British athletes. Cycling coach David Brailsford MBE has been offered positions with other countries following the successes of the GB cycling team in Beijing.
Even if the athletes may be overwhelmingly native to the country they represent, training camps are usually in locations with better conditions. The British climate which is either cold and wet or very cold and wet is one reason British marathon runner Paula Radcliffe is based in the French Pyrenees.
If talent and location are up for sale and if winning is all that matters, then a «country» is little more than a convenient way to attain Olympic glory and political kudos.
In an era of globalisation, relocation of human talent and resources chip away at the increasingly blurred concept of country and nation. Can a team be said to be British if it is run on foreign soil by foreign nationals?
And so we come at last to the real meaning of the Olympics - a sports spectacular that started with noble and honourable aims but has become perverted by commercial greed and political ambition. A showcase for competing political and economic ideologies for the benefit of the egos of their respective leaders.
But the nature of Monkey is ... irrepressible, and the youth of the world will assemble in London in 2012 and we'll all briefly put aside our misgivings and thrill again to their athleticism and youthful optimism.
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