Sports Medals

In the early 1900’s sports medal presentations became very popular in the industrial heartlands of the UK to encourage employees to fill their free time with useful activities, foster moral and social cohesion, the Victorian adage of “Mens sana in corpore sano” (a healthy mind in a healthy body) was all the rage.

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Medals were generally presented with top rings but no ribbons or ribbon collarettes. Today a sporting celebration is always accompanied by a medal ceremony and the ribbons on the medals are as important. They are placed over the heads of the winners by a VIP or sponsor. Ribbons allow for branding and corporate colours and give extra visibility to sponsors who can bask in the reflected glory of the famous athletes who proudly wear them.

Thomas Fattorini can make large numbers or one-offs and personalise medals with specific details for example for the iconic ‘Y’ medals for the Tour de Yorkshire the various stages and group winners are all added to the medals to make them even more relevant to the recipient.

Traditionally in a metal material, medals are either gold, silver or bronze plated to distinguish the winners, runners-up and third places. There is a lot of scope to make the medal unique and distinctive with the shape, the materials and the size all completing the look.

Sizes have also grown over the years as organisations want maximum publicity so as with the Olympic medals the average medal has grown from 35-50mm over 70 years ago, to 70-90mm in diameter today. The largest medal we have made is 150mm and weighs approx. 1.4kg which is too large to wear!