In the ongoing 2016 Rio Olympics, an intriguing trend is arising among basically all olympians that have actually ended up atop the podium.
The winners including Kenya’s two-time 800M Olympic champion David Rudisha have been somehow biting their medals whilst taking photographs.
This trend has left many questioning its significance and how biting a piece of metal is important in an athlete’s celebration especially for the Gold medal winners.
Athletes in Rio revealed that photographers have been requesting them to pull the stunt as a way of celebrating and confirming the medal.
“It’s become an obsession with the photographers. They look at it as an iconic shot, as something that you can probably sell,” stated the President of International Society of Olympic Historians.
Another theory explaining the behavior is tied to history. It is believed that those who dealt in gold during the ancient times used to bite them to confirm their authenticity.
Gold is softer than other metals and a small gnaw on the medal would leave a mark confirming that it is pure gold.
However, this has been ruled out as a possible reason since the current Gold medals awarded to winners are majorly made of silver and just a small percentage of gold coating to change its colour.
The practice is therefore not a requirement and does not hold any known significance but is just a ‘cool’ pose to take photographs.
