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Image: BBC/IOC

The 2012 London Olympics will have the biggest gold medals ever

Ryanair will have a field day on the excess baggage charges if Ireland’s athletes pick up a few of these.

Reproduced with permission from Business Insider

THE 2012 SUMMER Olympics begin in London one year from this week and to mark the countdown, the city is kicking its preparations into overdrive.

Yesterday, officials unveiled the medals that will be given out to the champions. They are the largest medals, in diameter and weight, that have ever been given out at the Summer Olympic Games.

The London medals are 85mm across, 7 mm think, and weigh 400g.

The Turin medals of the 2006 Winter Olympics were wider, but also had that dumb hole in the middle.

The back logo features “a ‘pick-up-sticks’ grid which radiates the energy of athletes and a sense of pulling together. The River Thames runs through the middle as a celebratory ribbon.” Unfortunately, the hometown team might have some trouble winning any of them.

The BBC put together a handy comparison showing how they stack up against all the previous Olympic medals. As you can see here, the 2012 version dwarfs even the Beijing Olympics of four years ago, at the time among the biggest ever.

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