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A bronze medal is a medal awarded to the third place finisher of contests (typically athletics competitions) such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc. The practice of awarding bronze third place medals began at the 1904 Olympic Games in St.Louis Missouri, prior to which only first and second places where awarded.
Olympic Games
Minting Olympic medals is the responsibility of the host city. From 1928-1968 the design was always the same: the obverse showed a generic design by Florentine artist Giuseppe Cassioli with text giving the host city; the reverse showed another generic design of an Olympic champion. From 1972-2000, Cassioli's design (or a slight reworking) remained on the obverse with a custom design by the host city on the reverse. Noting that Cassioli's design showed a Roman amphitheatre for what was originally a Greek games, a new obverse design was commissioned for the Athens 2004 Games. Winter Olympics medals have been of more varied design.
Commonwealth Games
At the 2006 commonwealth games which was held at Melbourne, Australia won over 50 of these bronze medals, and total medals won was over 150.
Psychological study
In 1995, a study was carried out by social psychologists Victoria Medvec, Scott Madey and Thomas Gilovich on the effects of counterfactual thinking on the Olympics. The study showed that athletes who won the bronze medal were significantly happier with their winning than those athletes who won the silver medal. The silver medalists were more frustrated because they had missed the gold medal, while the bronze medalists were simply happy to have received any honors at all (instead of a fourth place).*
External link
"Bronze medal"