The last Games where champions wore pure gold around their necks took place in Stockholm 104 years ago. Today, an Olympic gold medal consists of 92.5 percent silver, 6.2 percent copper and 1.3 percent gold. If its worth is measured in weight, then a gold medal from this year's Olympics is worth about US $550.

Stories sell

And yet, the true value of an Olympic medal does not reside in the metal or its worth on the commodity market, but in the athlete who won it and the story they told on their way to fulfilling their goals. The aura surrounding the greatest of champions corresponds to the amount of money wealthy people are willing to pay to get their hands on their medals. It is not the piece of metal that they are buying but rather, a piece of greatness, to become a part of the story which will resonate throughout history.

For instance, one of the gold medals won by Jesse Owens, an African-American athlete who humiliated Adolf Hitler and the whole of Nazi Germany in 1936 by racking up four victories against "superior Aryans" in what is today known as one of the three greatest sporting achievements ever, fetched a whopping US $1.47m. Recently, dethroned boxing champion Vladimir Klitschko auctioned off the gold medal he won in Atlanta in 1996 for US $1m and donated the proceeds to a charity that he had set up in Ukraine. Remember the "Miracle on Ice" Mark Wells, a member of the 1980 US Olympic hockey team which beat the overwhelming favourites from the Soviet Union and who sold his gold medal for US $40,000 to finance multiple surgeries on his oft injured back - the medal was later resold for US $310,000.

There are probably only a few athletes from the Rio de Janeiro Olympics who could sell their medals and match or even surpass these hefty sums. Usain Bolt is the first name that pops into mind. "I'm the greatest!" he told the world after winning his ninth sprint gold medal - he is probably right! Despite that he overshadowed most of the 11,000 athletes competing in Brazil, his feats don't diminish the sporting achievements of other medal winners, especially those from smaller countries, like Slovenia, who might never achieve the adulation of millions or even billions, but can nevertheless have a tangible impact on the development of their sport or global recognition of their homeland.

The streak endures

The Slovenian flag was raised four times at the Rio Olympics. Slovenian athletes gave their competition a run for their money in handball, athletics, swimming and cycling and truly excelled in judo, sailing and white-water kayaking, making sure that Slovenia was, once again, amongst the top seven countries by medal count per capita - four medals, one for every 515,000 Slovenians. The total medal count won in Summer Olympics since independence is now 23.

Slovenia's astonishing run of podium finishes continued for the fourth straight Summer Olympic games. If there is one common thread in the 12 year period, it is our warrior judokas who became serial medal winners under the tutelage and extremely hard training regime of Marjan Fabjan. "I'm taking on the world with only twenty people," he said in a recent interview - and he's winning! First there was Urška Žolnir winning bronze in Athens 2004, then Lucija Polavder and her bronze in Beijing 2008, London four years later saw Žolnir return to her winning ways beating all opponents to take home the first gold medal for Slovenian judo. Each time one of Fabjan's judokas donned her kimono and stepped on to the Olympic tatami, a familiar feeling swept through Slovenian spectators at home - we're are going to witness something special. And we did - again! Tina Trstenjak, a reigning world champion, decimated her competition to win the gold medal emphatically by bringing Clarissa Agbegnenou, a former world champion herself, to submission. But Slovenians weren't done. Anamari Velenšek won a bronze medal by chocking out her German adversary, Luise Malzahn. Achieving this on an injured knee (torn anterior and lateral ligaments) makes her achievement even more impressive and inspiring for ever more numerous young Slovenian judoists.

"We proved once again that it's possible to succeed with plenty of will, energy and self-sacrifice," were Fabjan's words accompanying her achievement. But they also hold true for at least two male Slovenian champions who dared to reach for Olympic glory. Peter Kauzer, whose mental toughness was questioned by couch commentators after two failed attempts at winning an Olympic medal in Beijing and London, finally proved his doubters wrong, barely missing the gold which went to Brit, Justin Clark. It was Giles Scott, a man from the same nation, that proved to be too much of an obstacle for the most decorated Slovenian sailor of all time, Vasilij Žbogar (two silver and a bronze medal). However, his silver is tantamount to gold when factoring in the obscene amounts of funding British sailors get. Each of the three sailing medals won in Rio cost Britain more than EUR 30m. With a budget almost 100-times smaller, Slovenia just missed out on two medals, with Tina Mrak and Veronika Macarol losing not on the water, but at the judges table.

National pride and business

Britain surpassed China as the second most successful collector of gold medals in Rio. What would have come as a huge surprise just two decades ago is now expected. Britain has poured more than EUR 420m into sports that offer the best chance of yielding medals. The result was 27 gold and 67 medals in total, a significantly richer haul than in Atlanta 1996 when British athletes won just one gold medal. Olympics and international sports have become more important for Britain "as an arena for national prestige and soft diplomacy," the sport historian, Tony Collins, said for The New York Times, "so, too, has the British government been willing to allocate more and more money to sport."

Whereas there is no question that investing in athletes enables further development of different sports, it isn't yet so clear whether it pays such dividends in other areas. Do victories of compatriots bring enough long-lasting happiness to improve productivity of the workforce - some studies show that happy employees are, on average, 12 percent more productive? Can Olympic medals strengthen the country brand and make it a more attractive for tourists or even foreign capital?

Sport can no doubt have an impact on the way a country is viewed globally. Take, for instance, Spain in 2012. The economy of the largest nation on the Iberian Peninsula was under constant media attack, the banking system was on the brink of implosion, there was talk of the Troika, similarly then a year later in Slovenia. When the Spanish national football squad won the Euro 2012 championship, the problems almost "disappeared". Researchers at Reputation Metrics found that the share of very negative news about Spanish problems fell to just 21.1 percent and there was less than half the number of images about their footballing success. "Yes," they concluded, "sporting success plays a major role in country branding."

Although Slovenian triumphs weren't necessarily "front page" material for most leading foreign newspapers, they sent the right message to the world. But there's a difference between getting recognised as a nation of good sportsmen and being attractive to foreign investors - Olympic medals won't hurt, but they may not help either.