One of the largest misconceptions regarding Olympic sports medals is that they are, in fact, made out of the medal their names are taken after. In fact, this is not true at all. The bronze medal is made out of a combination of zinc, copper and a few other medals, while the gold medal is actually made up of an inner silver medal, with just a slight gold coating. That means, if the gold medal is essentially a silver medal with a nice coating on it.The silver medal is the only medal awarded by the Olympics to actually be made up by mostly its namesake medal. However, this has not always been the case, as originally, the gold medal was made out of pure gold. However, this was deemed to expensive, and the current method we now see today was adopted. The last time an Olympic medal was made out of pure gold was all the way back in 1912.

The fifth official Olympiad was held in Stockholm, Sweden back during the summer of 1912. This was an important Olympics as many different firsts took place here. For one, it is actually the only full Olympic games to take place within Sweden. It also saw the start of “Art Competitions.” This is a rather unusual inclusion in the Olympic games, as instead of athletic competition, it had judges deem the winner of five different categories, which include architecture, literature, music, painting and sculpture. All of the art inclusions had to have some reference from a sporting event. These awards actually continued through 1948. The 1952 Olympics were actually the first set of Olympic games since 1908 to not include these competitions, as it was hard to determine if individuals were actually amateur artists, as this is required to compete in the games. After 1948, there has been an inclusion of arts ans music in all of the games since, but no medal awards have been handed out.

Outside of the new art competitions, the decathlon and pentathlon first saw action at these Olympic games.

In total, the United States won the most gold medals with 25, but finished with 63 total medals, two short of Sweden. Sweden finished with a total of 24 gold medals.

28 different countries took part in these Olympic games, including several brand new countries. Japan was the first country out of Asia to join in the competition, while Egype served as the first middle eastern country in the competition. Two other countries, Portugal and Turkey, first saw action in these games.

At the time, the Olympic games were mainly compromised of individuals from Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Chile was the only country out of South America to join in on the competition, while until Egypt joined in, South Africa was the only other country to play the games. However, this was mostly due to it being a British colony at the time, so mostly British nationals took part in the games. In years to come, additional countries joined in on the games, although no more pure gold medals were produced again.