If there are any olympic medals left after the olympics have finished, what do the organisers do with them?

Question

If there are any olympic medals left after the olympics have finished, what do the organisers do with them?

Answer 1

I would think they would melt them down and use the metal for the medals in the next games.

Answer 2

They should know how many will be needed in total..

Answer 3

Why would they have extra medals all the need to do is count how many events that people qualify for a medal.  

Answer 4

They don't just guess how many sports there will be and then have those medals made. They have a count of how many athletes will be participating in each sport and there is always enough to have the top 3 places. No need to have extra medals just hanging around.

EDIT: Most sports do NOT have ties, they have tie breakers thus there is no need to make the extra medals for this. There was one of the first ties ever in the last Olympics on floor between Marion Dragulescu and another person and they had to actually look up in the rule book to find out if there was in fact a tie breaker or not.

Answer 5

there shouldn't be any left over because they go through each sport and the organizer for that gives them a list of all the events and they go through and give a gold silver and bronze for all of them make since???

Answer 6

they throw them away...

Answer 7

They always make extra medals in case of ties and two medals of any colour are needed. (although it is a small number of extras) if more extra medals are needed then the medal ceremony can be delayed whilst they are made.

eg if there is a tie for gold then two golds and a bronze are given out but no silver.

The ones which are not used are then put into the IOC vault in Switzerland.

Answer 8

If they do make extras for ties etc., they must have a LOT left over because I noticed the Gold medal winner for the rowing today had the event name cast into it......  Maybe they melt them back down again afterwards.

Answer 9

Ebay

and believe it or not yes there are actually extra medals unlike what some of the answers below are saying.... when the 3rd and 4th place achieve the same time, an extra bronze medal is needed, same for getting the same time for gold and silvers.