Most medallions bite their medals with light in their eyes. They certainly aren't getting to taste it, but most of them are requested by their photographers to bite their medals.
So it's the historic, iconic photograph that many of the players dream about, and finally, it happens. The gold medal winner has his country's flag around his shoulders, with his teeth in contact with gold.
"It's become an obsession with the photographers," David Wallechinsky, president of the International Society of Olympic Historians says. "I think they look at it as an iconic shot, as something that you can probably sell. I don't think it's something the athletes would probably do on their own."
There is also some history behind the practice. As gold is a soft metal, biting it would leave tooth marks on it. Hence, biting would help to authenticate the gold metal. It began to be the practice when gold coins started being the high currency.
But now, it isn't so much for that. The amount of gold in a medal changes in every Olympic match, and this year, the medals have just 1.34 per cent of gold, as it is mostly silver.
The silver makes it hard, not soft. In 2010, David Moeller, a luger on the German Olympic team, got his tooth broken when he bit his silver medal.
Since 1912, medals have not been made with solid gold. Today, a gold medal would cost $22,000. The podium value of a gold medal is $564.
Hence, the advice for the Olympians is to not bite their medals, but just kiss them.
