Gold medals and diamond goat necklaces weren’t the only way to celebrate being crowned an Olympic champion this summer: a handful of athletes also opted to don a sparkling tiara to commemorate their historic wins.
US Olympian Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone not only took home the gold for her performance in the women’s 400-metre hurdling final, she also smashed the world record, which she had previously set at the Tokyo Games in 2020. After crossing the finish line, she headed straight to her family and friends in the stands, where she also donned her country’s flag and picked up an ornate gold and crystal tiara. Later, McLaughlin-Levrone explained to press that her sister-in-law had actually picked up the diadem for her, and that it was “just a really cute, fun thing.”
Team GB’s own glorious gold medallist, Keely Hodgkinson marked her extraordinary victory at the women’s 800m final with a golden replica of a royal crown (potentially The State Diadem, which was made in 1820 by jewellers Rundell Bridge & Rundell for King George IV), as the World Athletics body named her “Queen of the 800m” on social media.
Meanwhile Hogkinson’s teammate, Katarina Johnson-Thompson, chose a suitably silvery-looking tiara after claiming second place in the women’s heptathlon. “Oh my god, I think one of the photographers thought I’d won because they kept on asking me to take pictures [with it],” she later explained in a radio interview. “I was like, ‘I’m going to have to take this off,’ but someone threw it. It was a silver one, so I thought it was for me. I hope it was for me!”
Aside from being lovely to look at, the royal-inspired headwear was actually a fitting choice for all these track-side celebrations. The jewel has its origins in Ancient Greece, where simple bands and olive and laurel wreaths were used to crown the earliest Olympic athletes and victorious warriors. From then on, diadems denoted power and prestige throughout history – with the belief that crowning the head, the closest body part to the heavens, was a show of divine authority.
Egyptian pharaohs, ancient emperors and kings all chose to adorn themselves with precious headdresses, while wealthy medieval brides valued jewelled garlands as part of their wedding outfits. These later fell out of fashion, only to be reintroduced during the 19th Century by none other than the French Emperor Napoleon and his wife Josephine.
Napoleon and Josephine were obsessed with emulating the style of Imperial Rome (both for its looks and also as a mark of their right to rule) which ushered in a revival of neoclassical fashion. By choosing to crown himself with a golden wreath, and his empress with a diamond tiara, Napoleon deliberately aligned his regime and his new court with the power and majesty of Rome (it’s even said that Josephine would wet the bottom edges of her flowing, empire-cut gowns, so they clung to her body and made her resemble a Roman statue). The fashion for tiaras then swept throughout Europe, with other royal houses choosing the style for themselves.
And there’s another fabulous Olympic Easter egg: Napoleon and Josephine’s favourite jeweller, Nitot et Fils, eventually evolved into the house of Chaumet – still one of Paris’ oldest and most esteemed jewellers and the maison responsible for crafting this year’s Olympic medals. Its sparkling speciality? Some of the most exquisite tiaras on earth.
As we gear up for the 2024 Paralympics, let’s hope we get to see a few more sparkling tiaras in the weeks to come.
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