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The Olympics have come a long way since the ancient days, and as for the awards, well; let’s just say it’s not hard to improve upon an olive branch. With the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games in full swing, newly-crowned champions are admiring their prizes and fans the world over are keeping track of just how many medals their home country will garner. Behind the scenes, we dug a bit deeper to discover the story behind Olympic glory.

Imagine standing tall atop the Olympic podium, gazing out over the masses gathered at your feet and awaiting your prize. You’ve spent the best years of your life preparing – pushing your body to the breaking point and honing your talents for this climactic moment.

Your reward? An olive branch wreath unceremoniously placed atop your head. While a token shrubbery and an epic poem penned in one’s honor held plenty of esteem for the ancient Greeks, it hardly does justice to a position as esteemed as that of an Olympic champions, particularly in modern times. Even the word athlete, derived from the Greek word for “prize-seeker,” seems to merit something with a bit more flair.

Enter the Olympic medals – an improvement, to be sure, but early competitors didn’t enjoy the same level of prestige as their modern-day counterparts. Back then, silver was the sole metal to make it into an Olympiad’s medal, and even that was only awarded to the lucky man who managed to claim the highest podium perch. 

Gold was considered inferior at the time – a fact that would have the Gold Guys of today rolling over in their 24 karat-plated coffins – leaving silver medals and victory diplomas as the highest honors any wide-eyed athlete could hope to achieve.  The time came yet again to rethink the glory behind the Olympic Games. Thus, the trio of metallic trophies known as the gold, silver and bronze was born.

Gold, silver and bronze sound self-explanatory, but not all that glitters is gold. Today’s gold medals are merely gold-plated medals, largely composed of sterling silver dipped in a thin layer – six grams, to be exact – of real gold. And third place finishers don’t fare much better. That shiny, penny-hued disc they’re sporting is actually crafted from copper, not bronze.

Athletes competing in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver have even less to look forward to. In the interest of being eco-friendly, the Royal Canadian Mint tossed a few hundred thousand tons of electronic waste into the mix. If you’re a Vancouver native, there’s a chance Lindsey Vonn, Shaun White and their ilk are sporting remnants of that old TV you tossed away a few months back.

While the removal of solid gold and the addition of e-waste knocks the lore of the Olympics down a few pegs, it far from erases their worth. The laws of supply and demand make these iconic discs worth a pretty penny, as evidenced when swimmer Otylia Jedrzejczak auctioned off her gold medallion and netted a cool $100,000 for the Polish charity of her choosing a few years back.

And with gold prices on the rise, the 2010 set may find themselves sorely tempted to dust off their trophy case and pass on their Olympic glory to the highest bidder – eBay, that is.