Beijing organisers took possession of the 3,000 medals for next month's Olympics in a ceremony near Tiananmen Square on Thursday, 36 days before the start of the Games.
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The medals were the first for an Olympics to be designed by the winners of a public competition and each has a distinctive inlay of jade, which represents beauty, nobility, perfection, power and immortality to the Chinese.
Did you know? Since 1928 the Olympic medals have featured the same design on the front -- a Greek goddess, the Olympic rings, the coliseum of ancient Athens, a Greek vase known as an amphora, a horse-drawn chariot, and the year, number of the Olympiad, and the host city.
Text: Reuters | Photographs: Getty Images
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