Where does the tradition of biting the olympic medal come from?

Question

When I look at the olympics, specifically at the pictures(a lot of different sports) whenever one player wins a medal he or she bites it. Is this some sort of tradition? Where does it come from?

Answer 1

There checkin to see if theres chocolate inside.. Duh!

Answer 2

They just wanted to look good in front of the cameras. Some people looks good doing it while others look dumb.

Answer 3

This is just a shot in the dark but back in the days when they mined for gold, one way to tell if gold was real was to bite it. Real gold is softer than one would imagine (which is why jewelry isn't made of solid gold, etc). So I think the tradition just came from people biting on gold coins to see if they were real back when it was used for payment.

Answer 4

Dunno but it is always there. Not just in the olympics, but also in the Xgames