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Third-place winner's medal from the Melbourne 1956 Summer Olympics. Bronze, 51 mm, 63 gm, by Giuseppe Cassioli; manufactured by K. G. Luke. The front, inscribed, "XVIth Olympiad, Melbourne, 1956," features a 'Seated Victory' with the Colosseum in the background; the reverse portrays a winner with a palm branch being carried by jubilant athletes. Includes its original white plastic case by K. G. Luke/Casecraft, which is in atypically pristine condition.
This medal's obverse follows Giuseppe Cassioli's celebrated design first introduced for the Amsterdam 1928 Summer Games, with the inscription modified to reflect the XVI Olympiad in Melbourne. The Melbourne Games were the first Olympiad ever staged in the Southern Hemisphere and the first held outside Europe and North America. Due to Australia's strict animal quarantine regulations, the equestrian competitions were conducted separately in Stockholm, Sweden, making the 1956 Olympics the only Games in history held across two countries. A scarce and highly attractive third-place medal from one of the most distinctive Olympiads of the modern era.
