Golden years
How many Olympic events would Team GB have to win before we could earn back the gold reserves sold by Gordon Brown?
— Olympic gold medals are in fact gold-plated silver and contain only 6g of gold. Between 1999 and 2002 Gordon Brown sold off 395 tons of gold — enough to mint 64.7m medals. Assuming the number of golds on offer at the summer Olympics remains 812, as at Rio, that would mean winning every event at 79,679 Olympiads, taking us to the games of ad 320736.
— It would be a different story if, as last happened in 1912, the medals were solid gold. With 500g of gold in each medal, we could achieve the feat by ad 5848.
Eastern promises
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