London locks up Olympics medals OLYMPICS

THE medals for the 2012 Olympic Games were locked up on Monday in a vault at the Tower of London, where Britain's Crown Jewels are kept under armed guard.

The 4,700 gold, silver and bronze discs will not be seen in public again until they are hung around the necks of the winning athletes at the Games, which open in the British capital on July 27.

London Games chief Sebastian Coe took the medals down to the vaults, where they will stay until they are due to be awarded.

The medals were greeted by a fanfare, as the tower's Yeoman Warder guards commonly known as Beefeaters watched with 150 schoolchildren from east London.

The first medals will be awarded on July 28, in the women's 10-metre air rifle and men's 10-metre air pistol events.

The gold medals are not actually made of solid gold. They are in fact 92.5 per cent silver and 1.34 per cent gold, while the rest is copper.

Metals used in the medals were mined in Mongolia and Utah in the United States.

AFP