Steve Genter is selling his Olympic medals. But their real value is how he won them

Second fiddle to Mark Spitz and swimming with a collapsed lung, the American's Munich story eclipses the medals' worth

The press release came through last week, publicising Thursday's sale of Olympic memorabilia at the RR auction house in Boston, USA. There's an Olympic torch from Berlin 1936, a postcard signed by Jesse Owens, a wooden clog from Amsterdam '28, a media pass from Tokyo '64, and, among them all, one complete set of medals.

A bronze, a silver and a gold from Munich '72: they have a 66mm diameter and are 5mm thick, an image of the goddess Nike engraved on one side, the twin gods Castor and Pollux on the other, and they weigh 175g, the last 6g the gold plating. Right now, the leading bid is $8,985 (7,090) for the three. Which is cheap given what they cost the owner. So why sell?